Estimated 16,500 deaths for climate change during Europe: Study

Paris: Scientists estimate on Wednesday that increasing temperatures from human climate change were responsible for about 16,500 deaths in European cities this summer, using modeling to project tolls before releasing official data.

The rapidly produced study is the latest attempt by climate and health researchers to quickly connect death during temperature regimes with global warming-without months of waiting or years published in a magazine evaluated by peer.

Estimated deaths were not really recorded in European cities, but instead was a projection based on methods such as modeling used in studies previously evaluated by peer.

Tolls of death during thermal waves are considered to be too underestimated, because the causes of death recorded in hospitals are usually heart, breathing or other health problems that particularly affect the elderly when mercury rises.

To get a snapshot of this summer, a group of researchers in the United Kingdom used climate modeling to estimate that global warming made temperatures an average of 2.2 degrees Celsius in 854 European cities between June and August.

Using historical data indicating how such temperatures increase mortality rates, the group estimates that there were about 24,400 excessive deaths in these cities during this period.

They then compared this number to how many people would have died in a world that was not 1.3C warmer due to the change of climate caused by people burning fossil fuels.

Almost 70% – 16,500 – of the estimated excessive deaths was due to global warming, according to the rapid performance study.

This means that climate change could triple the number of heat deaths this summer, he said that the study by scientists at Imperial College London and Epidemiologists at the London Health and Tropical Medicine School.

The team had previously used similar methods to find a similar result for a single European burning wave that began in late June.

Researchers said they were unable to compare their estimates with the real excessive deaths recorded in European cities this summer, because most countries need a lot of time to publish this data.

“It is impossible to obtain real-time statistics at this time,” however, the estimates are “in the right park,” said co-author of the study Friederike Otto at a press conference.

‘Even more worrying’

Estimates reflected the previous research evaluated by peer, such as a study of natural medicine, which found that there were more than 47,000 heat -related deaths during the European summer of 2023.

Many prominent climate and health researchers have also supported the study.

“What makes this finding even more worrying is that the methods used in these performance studies are scientifically powerful but conservative,” said atmospheric science researcher Akshay Deoras at Reading University in the United Kingdom.

“The actual number of deaths could be even higher.”

The study said Rome had the most estimated deaths attributed to climate change, with 835, followed by Athens with 630 and Paris with 409.

More than 85% of estimated excessive deaths were among people aged 65 or older.

The researchers emphasized that the study does not represent Europe as a whole because some areas – such as the Balkans – were not included.

“Increasing the temperature of hot energy just 2-4C can be the difference between life and death for thousands of people-this is why thermal waves are known as silent killers,” said co-writer Garyfallos Konstantinoudis.

This year was the fourth summer of Europe.