Winter season mortality: will climate warming bring benefits?
Extreme heat events are associated with spikes in mortality, yet death rates are on average highest during the coldest months of the year. Under the assumption that most winter excess mortality is due to cold temperature, many previous studies have concluded that winter mortality will substantially...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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IOP Publishing
2015-01-01
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| Series: | Environmental Research Letters |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/10/6/064016 |
| _version_ | 1797748757999124480 |
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| author | Patrick L Kinney Joel Schwartz Mathilde Pascal Elisaveta Petkova Alain Le Tertre Sylvia Medina Robert Vautard |
| author_facet | Patrick L Kinney Joel Schwartz Mathilde Pascal Elisaveta Petkova Alain Le Tertre Sylvia Medina Robert Vautard |
| author_sort | Patrick L Kinney |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Extreme heat events are associated with spikes in mortality, yet death rates are on average highest during the coldest months of the year. Under the assumption that most winter excess mortality is due to cold temperature, many previous studies have concluded that winter mortality will substantially decline in a warming climate. We analyzed whether and to what extent cold temperatures are associated with excess winter mortality across multiple cities and over multiple years within individual cities, using daily temperature and mortality data from 36 US cities (1985–2006) and 3 French cities (1971–2007). Comparing across cities, we found that excess winter mortality did not depend on seasonal temperature range, and was no lower in warmer vs. colder cities, suggesting that temperature is not a key driver of winter excess mortality. Using regression models within monthly strata, we found that variability in daily mortality within cities was not strongly influenced by winter temperature. Finally we found that inadequate control for seasonality in analyses of the effects of cold temperatures led to spuriously large assumed cold effects, and erroneous attribution of winter mortality to cold temperatures. Our findings suggest that reductions in cold-related mortality under warming climate may be much smaller than some have assumed. This should be of interest to researchers and policy makers concerned with projecting future health effects of climate change and developing relevant adaptation strategies. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-12T16:09:25Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-53f1f14d95454b9bbd88080754d39216 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1748-9326 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-12T16:09:25Z |
| publishDate | 2015-01-01 |
| publisher | IOP Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Environmental Research Letters |
| spelling | doaj.art-53f1f14d95454b9bbd88080754d392162023-08-09T14:11:56ZengIOP PublishingEnvironmental Research Letters1748-93262015-01-0110606401610.1088/1748-9326/10/6/064016Winter season mortality: will climate warming bring benefits?Patrick L Kinney0Joel Schwartz1Mathilde Pascal2Elisaveta Petkova3Alain Le Tertre4Sylvia Medina5Robert Vautard6Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University , New York, NY 10032, USAHarvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USAInstitut de Veille Sanitaire, F-94415 Saint-Maurice, FranceNational Center for Disaster Preparedness, Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USAInstitut de Veille Sanitaire, F-94415 Saint-Maurice, FranceInstitut de Veille Sanitaire, F-94415 Saint-Maurice, FranceLaboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environment, F-91191 Gif sur Yvette, FranceExtreme heat events are associated with spikes in mortality, yet death rates are on average highest during the coldest months of the year. Under the assumption that most winter excess mortality is due to cold temperature, many previous studies have concluded that winter mortality will substantially decline in a warming climate. We analyzed whether and to what extent cold temperatures are associated with excess winter mortality across multiple cities and over multiple years within individual cities, using daily temperature and mortality data from 36 US cities (1985–2006) and 3 French cities (1971–2007). Comparing across cities, we found that excess winter mortality did not depend on seasonal temperature range, and was no lower in warmer vs. colder cities, suggesting that temperature is not a key driver of winter excess mortality. Using regression models within monthly strata, we found that variability in daily mortality within cities was not strongly influenced by winter temperature. Finally we found that inadequate control for seasonality in analyses of the effects of cold temperatures led to spuriously large assumed cold effects, and erroneous attribution of winter mortality to cold temperatures. Our findings suggest that reductions in cold-related mortality under warming climate may be much smaller than some have assumed. This should be of interest to researchers and policy makers concerned with projecting future health effects of climate change and developing relevant adaptation strategies.https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/10/6/064016warming temperaturehealthwinter |
| spellingShingle | Patrick L Kinney Joel Schwartz Mathilde Pascal Elisaveta Petkova Alain Le Tertre Sylvia Medina Robert Vautard Winter season mortality: will climate warming bring benefits? Environmental Research Letters warming temperature health winter |
| title | Winter season mortality: will climate warming bring benefits? |
| title_full | Winter season mortality: will climate warming bring benefits? |
| title_fullStr | Winter season mortality: will climate warming bring benefits? |
| title_full_unstemmed | Winter season mortality: will climate warming bring benefits? |
| title_short | Winter season mortality: will climate warming bring benefits? |
| title_sort | winter season mortality will climate warming bring benefits |
| topic | warming temperature health winter |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/10/6/064016 |
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