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| TimFox:
A quick Google search for heat vs cold deaths in the US reveals that the issue here is not settled. It's difficult to determine, since death certificates rarely mention either heat or cold as the cause. |
| Zero999:
--- Quote from: TimFox on July 20, 2022, 09:16:33 pm ---A quick Google search for heat vs cold deaths in the US reveals that the issue here is not settled. It's difficult to determine, since death certificates rarely mention either heat or cold as the cause. --- End quote --- I can see that being debatable in the US, but in the UK there definitely seem to be more cold related deaths, than hot. --- Quote ---An average of 9,700 deaths each year are believed to be caused by living in a cold house, according to research by National Energy Action (NEA) and the environmental group E3G. --- End quote --- https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/27/dying-cold-europe-fuel-poverty-energy-spending --- Quote ---Taking Care conducted an analysis of the last five years of Government data and found that in total 6,723 people have died due to heat-related illness in summer months. --- End quote --- https://taking.care/blogs/resources-advice/the-main-causes-of-uk-heatwave-deaths-2022 I still question the accuracy of those articles. There have been years with extremes of temperature such as 2018, with a cold February-March followed by one of the hottest Julys. I suppose it's possible the winter cold killed the vulnerable, so there were fewer people around in summer. On the other hand COVID-16 would have killed many vulnerable people, so one would expect there to be fewer deaths in the summers of 2020 and 2021, although perhaps too many vulnerable people stayed in their hot houses, rather going out through fear of catching the virus. There are many factors. |
| PlainName:
I think we used to get more cold1 winter days than hot summer days, so even with equal numbers of casualties the hot days would be more dangerous. Additionally, I think you need proper cold for an extended period to have an issue, whereas even a short period of too much heat can be a killer. [1] By cold and hot I mean problematic temperatures, not just relatively cold and hot. |
| TimFox:
Another detail about climate in the US, specifically where I live in Chicago, is that the average temperature (averaged over 24 hours) has increased with the overall warming trend, but that the nighttime low temperature has increased more than has the daytime high temperature. This makes it more difficult to cool a house in the summer without A/C. |
| Someone:
--- Quote from: Zero999 on July 20, 2022, 09:08:28 pm --- --- Quote from: Someone on July 19, 2022, 11:44:04 pm --- --- Quote from: Zero999 on July 19, 2022, 07:58:05 pm ---Yes, it's not nice being here when during a heatwave. To those who say it's nothing, temperatures today have been 10oC hotter than the usual hottest summer day and over 18oC hotter than average. Overnight lows have been between 20oC and 25oC, 7oC to 13oC above normal. --- End quote --- Its not "nothing" but its not a dire emergency, you can say its blah degrees more than normal but thats only what you are acclimatized to. The overnight minimum is a good measure as thats the best case possible with perfect insulation and no air-con, and often most disruptive (preventing sleep/rest). Australian city highest overnight minimums in the last 10 years (just the south east, no tropics): Melbourne: 28 Adelaide: 34 Canberra: 27 Sydney: 25 All these places see daily maximums over 40 C routinely, yet air-conditioning is not universal: Adelaide 90%, others 70%. Yes, heat is a bigger threat to life than cold, but that seems to have some strong acclimatization or behavioral content that London does poorly with: https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/heat-and-health-2/assessment So the rest of the world will rightly point to the UK (London) and say learn to adapt with high and low temperature extremes, everyone else seems to survive better. --- End quote --- I question whether it's true that heat kills more, than cold in the UK. Look at the average temperatures for London and compare them to the graphs in the link. According to those graphs, our winters are consistently below the temperature which results in increased excess deaths, yet much less so in summer. Now look at the extreme heat we had yesterday, compared to normal. A high of 40°C, 17°C above average. A low of 25.8 °C, 11.6°C above average and warmer than Sydney's record low. The hottest night of the year in London is normally around 18°C and there are only 2.5 days on average above 30°C. You're right the hot night was more of a problem, bearing in mind it was only <26°C for a short time before dawn and buildings wouldn't have reached anywhere thermal equilibrium, even with all the windows open. https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/press-office/news/weather-and-climate/2022/record-temperatures-2022-a-review https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London#Climate --- End quote --- Is Kenley really the normal go-to benchmark location for London weather?? That is a further extreme within an extreme,. Relaxing "Sydney" to any of the weather stations within the greater area would have their maximum overnight temperature at least 29 degrees (cant be bothered to fully export all the data and check further) but only a tiny portion of the population would be exposed to those outliers, a dense city location is more representative. Heat doesn't kill more people than cold, yet heat presents a larger risk/threat to life as humans have a harder time adapting (very easy to put on more clothes when its cold). Few hot days and many cold days of course multiply out to different fatality counts. Is cycling safer than driving a car in London because there are fewer deaths per capita or annually? hell no. Its wildly more dangerous when measured by exposure. But its till more dangerous than cycling in say The Netherlands so people can rightly question why the UK/London isnt doing better and what are they doing wrong to cause these excess deaths? Same with the extreme temperatures, unprecedented for Londoners but actually pretty common elsewhere without the excess deaths/wailing. |
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