Southeast England most at risk of rising deaths due to climate change

Warmer summers brought on by climate change will cause more deaths in London and southeast England than the rest of the country, scientists predict.

Researchers at Imperial College London looked at temperature records and mortality figures for 2001 to 2010 to find out which districts in England and Wales experience the biggest effects from warm temperatures.

In the most vulnerable districts, in London and the southeast, the odds of dying from cardiovascular or respiratory causes increased by over 10 per cent for every 1C rise in temperature. Districts in the far north were much more resilient, seeing no increase in deaths at equivalent temperatures.

Writing in Nature Climate Change, the researchers say local variations in climate change vulnerability should be taken into account when assessing the risks and choosing policy responses.

Dr James Bennett, the lead author of the study from the MRC-PHE Centre for Environment and Health at Imperial College London, said: “It’s well known that warm weather can increase the risk of cardiovascular and respiratory deaths, especially in elderly people. Climate change is expected to raise average temperatures and increase temperature variability, so we can expect it to have effects on mortality even in countries like the UK with a temperate climate.”

Across England and Wales as a whole, a summer that is 2C warmer than average would be expected to cause around 1,550 extra deaths, the study found. Just over half would be in people aged over 85, and 62 per cent would be in women. The extra deaths would be distributed unevenly, with 95 out of 376 districts accounting for half of all deaths.

The effects of warm temperature were similar in urban and rural districts. The most vulnerable districts included deprived districts in London such as Hackney and Tower Hamlets, with the odds of dying more than doubling on very hot days like those of August 2003.

“The reasons for the uneven distribution of deaths in warm weather need to be studied,” said Professor Majid Ezzati, from the School of Public Health at Imperial, who led the research. “It might be due to more vulnerable individuals being concentrated in some areas, or it might be related to differences at the community level, like quality of healthcare, that require government action.

“We might expect that people in areas that tend to be warmer would be more resilient, because they adapt by installing air conditioning for example. These results show that this isn’t the case in England and Wales.

“While climate change is a global phenomenon, resilience and vulnerability to its effects are highly local. Many things can be done at the local level to reduce the impact of warm spells, like alerting the public and planning for emergency services. Detailed information about which communities are most at risk from high temperatures can help to inform these strategies.”

The researchers received funding from the Medical Research Council, Public Health England, and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Imperial Biomedical Research Centre.

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Corals don’t lie: Centuries of rising sea levels and temperature data revealed

AIMS scientists together with a team from The University of Western Australia, CSIRO and the University of San Diego have analysed coral cores from the eastern Indian Ocean to understand how the unique coral reefs of Western Australia are affected by changing ocean currents and water temperatures. The research was published today in the international journal Nature Communications. The findings give new insights into how La Ni?a, a climate swing in the tropical Pacific, affects the Leeuwin current and how our oceans are changing.

“Due to the lack of long-term observations of marine climate we used long coral cores, with annual growth bands similar to tree rings, to provide a record of the past. We obtained records of past sea temperatures by measuring the chemical composition of the coral skeleton from year to year. This showed how changing winds and ocean currents in the eastern Indian Ocean are driven by climate variability in the western tropical Pacific Ocean,” said Dr Jens Zinke (Assistant Professor at the UWA Oceans Institute and AIMS-UWA scientist). The long coral records allowed the scientists to look at these patterns of climate variability back to 1795 AD.

La Ni?a events in the tropical Pacific result in a strengthened Leeuwin Current and unusually warm water temperatures and higher sea levels off southwest Western Australia.

“A prominent example is the 2011 heat wave along WA’s reefs which led to coral bleaching and fish kills,” said Dr Ming Feng CSIRO Principal Research Scientist.?

The international team found that in addition to warming sea surface temperatures, sea-level variability and Leeuwin Current strength have increased since 1980. The coral cores also reveal that the strong winds and extreme weather of 2011 off Western Australia are highly unusual in the context of the past 215 years. The authors conclude that this is clear evidence that global warming and sea-level rise is increasing the severity of these extreme events which impact the highly diverse coral reefs of Western Australia, including the Ningaloo Reef World Heritage site.

“Given ongoing global climate change, It is likely that future La Ni?a events will result in more extreme warming and high sea-level events with potentially significant consequences for the maintenance of Western Australia's unique marine ecosystems,” said Dr Janice Lough, AIMS Senior Principal Research Scientist.

The researchers used core samples of massive Porites colonies from the Houtman-Abrolhos Islands, the most southerly reefs in the Indian Ocean which are directly in the path of the Leeuwin Current. Using the chemical composition of the annual coral growth bands they were able to reconstruct sea surface temperature and Leeuwin Current for 215 years, from 1795 to 2010.

Journal Reference:

J. Zinke, A. Rountrey, M. Feng, S.-P. Xie, D. Dissard, K. Rankenburg, J.M. Lough, M.T. McCulloch. Corals record long-term Leeuwin current variability including Ningaloo Ni?o/Ni?a since 1795. Nature Communications, 2014; 5 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms4607

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Swollen Mississippi River sets record high at Natchez, Mississippi and still rising

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May 11, 2011 ARCHIVES  |  Weather  |  NEWS

Linda Young - AHN News Writer

Tunica, MS, United States (AHN) - The swollen Mississippi River has residents of Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana bracing for the inevitability of flooding now that the flood crest has passed Memphis.

Flood stage is 37 feet at Memphis and the Mississippi River crested at 47.8 feet on Tuesday, just shy of a 1937 record.

Rain and snowmelt along the river and its tributaries has resulted in one of the worst flood events since the 1937 flood for many towns along its 2,320-mile course.

Some 3 million acres of land are under floodwater in Tennessee, Arkansas and Missouri. Some farmers have lost their crops for the year.

Flood stage is 48 feet in Natchez, Mississippi where a new water level record of 58.3 feet was set Wednesday morning with the river still rising and forecasts calling for it to crest in that city at 64 feet.

Meanwhile, the Mississippi River reached flood stage of 17 feet in New Orleans today, but the flood crest is not expected to reach that city for several more weeks.

Copyright 2011 by (AHN)
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