The burden of heat-related mortality attributable to recent human-induced climate change

Climate change affects human health; however, there have been no large-scale, systematic efforts to quantify the heat-related human health impacts that have already occurred due to climate change. Here, we use empirical data from 732 locations in 43 countries to estimate the mortality burdens associ...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Vicedo-Cabrera, Ana Maria, Scovronick, N., Sera, Francesco, Tobías, Aurelio, Dung, D. V., Gillett, N., Mengel, M., Haines, A., Huber, V., Gasparrini, Antonio
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión aceptada para publicación
Fecha de publicación:2021
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/245210
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/245210
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Climate change
Environmental impact
Attribution
Climate-change impacts
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Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
Descripción
Sumario:Climate change affects human health; however, there have been no large-scale, systematic efforts to quantify the heat-related human health impacts that have already occurred due to climate change. Here, we use empirical data from 732 locations in 43 countries to estimate the mortality burdens associated with the additional heat exposure that has resulted from recent human-induced warming, during the period 1991–2018. Across all study countries, we find that 37.0% (range 20.5–76.3%) of warm-season heat-related deaths can be attributed to anthropogenic climate change and that increased mortality is evident on every continent. Burdens varied geographically but were of the order of dozens to hundreds of deaths per year in many locations. Our findings support the urgent need for more ambitious mitigation and adaptation strategies to minimize the public health impacts of climate change.