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New research suggests that U.S. climate change, and the unpredictable temperature swings it can bring, may boost death rates in seniors.
"Temperature variability emerges as a key feature in the potential impacts of climate change. The take-home message: Unusual temperature is bad for people's health," said study author Liuhua Shi, a graduate student in the department of environmental health at Harvard's School of Public Health in Boston.
Scientists have long been debating the health effects of climate change, and the general assumption is that it will make people sicker through more extreme heat, more flooding and more polluted air.
Shi and colleagues launched their study in the New England area to better understand how weather affects death rates. "Many studies have reported associations between short-term temperature changes and increased daily deaths," Shi said. "However, there is little evidence to date on the long-term effect of temperature."
The researchers looked at Medicare statistics regarding 2.7 million people over the age of 65 in New England from 2000 to 2008. Of those, Shi said, 30 percent died during the study.
The researchers found death rates rose when the average summer temperature rose significantly, and death rates dropped when the average winter temperature rose significantly.
The researchers believe the increased risk in the summer is due to an increase in the variability of temperatures. According to Shi, "climate change may affect mortality rates by making seasonal weather more unpredictable, creating temperature conditions significantly different to those to which people have become acclimatized."
On the other hand, warmer winter temperatures caused by climate change could actually reduce deaths, the researchers added.
The study appears in the July 13 issue of Nature Climate Change.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21 2015, @01:55AM
I don't think that makes much sense. The whole idea is that CO2 is increasing the heat capacity of the atmosphere. This will smooth daily and latitudinal temperatures (make earth more like Venus):
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0802.4324v1.pdf [arxiv.org]
However, note this paper was published before data was available and appears to be incorrect regarding the average temperature of the moon (http://www.diviner.ucla.edu/science.shtml)
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday July 21 2015, @02:11AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21 2015, @02:46AM
A quick search lead to this paper (Francis and Vavrus, 2015) which says the opposite of what you claim:
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/10/1/014005/article [iop.org]
They also appear to agree with the simple model I linked to: The atmosphere will become more stable with smaller temperature gradients (which is then proposed to lead to more extreme events). Do you have an alternative source?
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday July 21 2015, @04:06AM
I do want to ask: Where exactly are we differing in opinion? Are you saying the paper says the temperature will rise and weather shifts will end up more mild than they are now? I feel like you're saying the weather will vary more wildly but I don't think you intend to say that. I do apologize for being dense, but one thing that's bugging me about this whole discussion is that I have trouble imagining how taking a very complicated mechanism and dumping more energy into it will result in anything but more chaos.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21 2015, @04:36AM
That paper says "amplified jetstream trajectories". I couldn't find any mention of the "weaker" jetstream you mention. Granted that term was used in a news article referencing this so it is probably just a vague, undefined concept.
We might be butting up against the same problem. What do you mean by "chaos"? Venus is much warmer than earth at the surface and has a much more stable atmosphere, it also has very strong winds. It seems to be explained quite clearly by these simple models. The higher the heat capacity of the system, the more uniform and stable the atmosphere:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0802.4324v1.pdf [arxiv.org]
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday July 21 2015, @04:57AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21 2015, @05:09AM
Yes, the model presented there accounts for rotation. All things being equal, a slower rotation (relative to the energy source: the sun) tends to cause more extreme differences, eg as seen for the moon.