Downplaying the catastrophic health impact of heatwaves costs lives

Over the past two decades we have seen changes in individual heatwave characteristics that can be attributed to human induced climate change—and in the past five years we have even detected an increase in excess mortality from heatwaves attributable to human activity. Attribution analysis is complex...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:BMJ (Online) 2022-08, Vol.378, p.o1940-o1940
Main Authors: Mitchell, Dann M, Lo, Y T Eunice
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Climate change
Environmental policy
Global health
Heat
Opinion
Wildfires
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Summary:Over the past two decades we have seen changes in individual heatwave characteristics that can be attributed to human induced climate change—and in the past five years we have even detected an increase in excess mortality from heatwaves attributable to human activity. Attribution analysis is complex and time consuming, but a provisional rapid fire analysis by the World Weather Attribution has suggested that this event was made at least 10 times more likely by human induced climate change, although that number can change quite a bit depending on how the event is defined. Wildfires around London on 18 and 19 July meant that the capital’s firefighters saw their busiest day since the second world war, and point toward areas of adaptation required to manage the effects of future climate change.
ISSN:1756-1833
1756-1833
DOI:10.1136/bmj.o1940