Global warming won't cut winter deaths as hoped

If you consider the incidence of extreme weather events around the world in recent years, this will come as no surprise.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/23/us-climate-cold-idUSBREA1M0XT20140223

By Alister Doyle
Sun Feb 23, 2014


(Reuters) - Global warming will fail to reduce high winter death rates as some officials have predicted because there will be more harmful weather extremes even as it gets less cold, a British study showed on Sunday.

A draft U.N. report due for publication next month says that, overall, climate change will harm human health, but adds:

"Positive effects will include modest improvements in cold-related mortality and morbidity in some areas due to fewer cold extremes, shifts in food production and reduced capacity of disease-carrying vectors."

However a report in the journal Nature Climate Change on the situation in England and Wales said climate warming would likely not decrease winter mortality in those places. It suggested more volatile winters, with swings from cold to mild linked to rising greenhouse gas emissions, might even raise death rates.

Lead author Philip Staddon of the University of Exeter told Reuters that the findings were likely to apply to other developed countries in temperate regions that risk more extreme weather as temperatures rise.

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Staddon said developed nations should avoid a radical shift in spending to heatwave protection, such as better air conditioning in homes for the elderly, from measures to ease cold such as subsidies for insulation or winter heating.

"Heatwave deaths will increase a lot but there will still be more winter deaths," he said. In 2003, the worst European heatwave in centuries killed up to 70,000 people, including about 3,000 in Britain.