Extreme heat could lead to 30,000 deaths a year in UK by 2070

Ammon

4 days ago

Ammon News - More than 30,000 people a year in England and Wales could die from heat-related causes by the 2070s, scientists have warned.
A new study calculates that heat mortality could rise more than fiftyfold in 50 years because of climate heating. Researchers at UCL and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine compared different potential scenarios, looking at levels of warming, measures to mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis, regional climatic differences and potential power outages. They also modelled the ageing population.
Between 1981 and 2021, there were on average 634 heat-related deaths in England and Wales a year. The research, published in PLoS Climate, found that – in the worst-case scenario of 4.3C of warming by the end of the century and assuming minimal adaptation to mitigate the effects – heat-related deaths would increase sixteenfold to 10,317 in the 2050s, and would exceed 34,000 by the 2070s.
Even if temperature rises are limited to 1.6C of warming over preindustrial levels and high levels of adaptation are put in place, annual heat-related deaths will still increase up to sixfold by the 2070s.
The record-setting hot summer of 2022 – when temperatures reached 40.3C in Coningsby, Lincolnshire – had 2,985 excess heat deaths, indicating a potential 'new normal' by as early as the 2050s, the research concluded.
The findings come as the UK Health Security Agency issued a yellow heat health alert for all regions from Thursday 10 July until Tuesday 15 July. Temperatures were expected to reach 27-29C in large parts of England and Wales on Thursday, with hotter weather of up to 31-33C forecast for the weekend.
Dr Clare Heaviside, a senior author at UCL Bartlett School Environment, Energy & Resources, said the findings painted 'a sobering picture of the consequences of climate change'.
'Over the next 50 years,' she said, 'the health impacts of a warming climate are going to be significant. We can mitigate their severity by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and with carefully planned adaptations, but we have to start now.'
The research also found that previous research underestimated heat mortality by not assessing the impact of older societies. Over the next 50 years, the population of England and Wales is predicted to age significantly, with the greatest increase in population size for those age 65 and over by the 2060s. Older people are more vulnerable in hot weather, with an extra 250 million people worldwide age 69 or above who will be exposed to dangerous levels of heat by 2050. The Guardian