Skillful heat-related mortality forecasting during recent deadly European summers
Europe is a heatwave hotspot: numerous temperature records have been broken in recent summers, and roughly 60,000 and 50,000 heat-related deaths occurred in the summers of 2022 and 2023, respectively. With recent summers, like that of 2022, projected to become the new norm, there is a pressing need...
| Autores: | , , , |
|---|---|
| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2025 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universitat Pompeu Fabra |
| Repositorio: | Repositorio Digital de la UPF |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:dnet:rdupf_______::7675f973ec7d23bcdb37e10a0c1da5b7 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/10230/73543 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2426516122 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Europe Early-warning systems Heat-related mortality Impact forecasting Temperature extremes |
| Sumario: | Europe is a heatwave hotspot: numerous temperature records have been broken in recent summers, and roughly 60,000 and 50,000 heat-related deaths occurred in the summers of 2022 and 2023, respectively. With recent summers, like that of 2022, projected to become the new norm, there is a pressing need to further develop heat-health warning systems to help society adapt to a warming climate. Here, we forecast heat-related mortality by applying a statistical epidemiological framework to temperature forecasts extending up to 2 wk in advance. Focusing on two recent and exceptional summers in Europe, namely 2022 and 2023, we evaluate the skill of the daily heat-related mortality forecasts, and assess its association with temperature. For most of Europe, milder temperatures, close to the minimum mortality temperature, are associated with more skillful heat-related mortality forecasts. However, some of the hottest regions in Europe instead showed enhanced forecast skill associated with higher temperatures. This suggests that heat-related mortality forecasts can provide valuable information in European regions associated with high levels of heat-related mortality. Consequently, we advocate for local health authorities to include information from forecasts of heat-related mortality in their heat warning systems. |
|---|