This summer’s heat waves may have already resulted in more than 2,700 deaths in England and Wales.
That’s according to an estimate published on Monday by researchers at Imperial College London, the UK Met Office and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Climate change pushed temperatures between 3C and 4C higher than they would otherwise have been, an effect that taken in isolation is responsible for more than 40% of the estimated deaths, the researchers said.
“Heat waves are the most dangerous kind of extreme weather,” said Clair Barnes, a research associate in extreme weather and climate change at Imperial College London. “This extreme heat that we are now exposed to because of human-caused climate change is extremely dangerous to human health.”
The warning comes as temperatures in the UK rise at a faster pace than the global average. Meanwhile, the latest heat waves have exposed major gaps in the preparedness of both Britain and the rest of northern Europe when it comes to protecting people from dangerously high temperatures.
The researchers behind Monday’s publication combined historical data on the link between heat and mortality with temperature data to estimate the number of deaths. They then modeled how many deaths would have occurred in a cooler world without human-caused warming, noting that the approach has previously produced estimates comparable to those of the UK Health Security Agency for past heat events.
The UKHSA is due to publish an official interim analysis of heat associated mortality impacts of the latest heat waves in the coming weeks, based on observed data.
In May, the UK’s Climate Change Committee, which advises the government, noted that virtually everything Britons consider normal features of their lives will be affected by rising temperatures. The UK is “built for a climate that no longer exists,” it said.
Air conditioning adoption has doubled over the last three years in the UK, but it’s still only installed in 7% of UK homes — with 8% relying on cheaper, less efficient portable units for cooling.
Access to cooling across much of Europe remains dangerously low. This year’s record-breaking heat in central and western Europe has already caused over 10,000 deaths across the UK, France, Spain and Germany, according research groups and government bodies in the affected countries.
Spain recorded over 2,000 excess deaths due to heat from May 15 to June 12, according to data from Instituto de Salud Carlos III, a government-funded institution. That’s close to double the 1,171 recorded during the same period last year and roughly on par with the number of fatalities seen in August, which is generally the deadliest summer month in Spain.
Monday’s report also indicates that dangerously high temperatures have hit earlier than usual. In the UK, a national record for May was set when the temperature reached 35.1C at Kew Gardens in southwest London. The unprecedented pre-summer heat resulted in an estimated 550 deaths, according to the authors of the study.
In June, three consecutive days of record-breaking temperatures for that month culminated in readings above 37C in East Anglia, which led to a further estimated 2,200 deaths.
Europe is now already facing its third heat wave of the season. The World Health Organization has warned that the extreme temperatures gripping the region are a “dress rehearsal” for what’s to come, as temperatures continue to rise.
“This combination of extreme daytime heat, high humidity, hot nights all act to really contribute and increase the impact that these heat waves have on our infrastructure, on transport, agriculture, and particularly our health and well-being,” said Mark McCarthy, climate attribution manager at the Met Office. “We are seeing what historically were once rare occurrences happening much more frequently.”
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