From Johns Hopkins/Bloomberg School of Health, where they apparently haven’t looked at this data before writing a worrying scare story. The simple fact is, record high temperatures are simply not on the increase.
Climate Change Analysis Predicts Increased Fatalities from Heat Waves
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Global climate change is anticipated to bring more extreme weather phenomena such as heat waves that could impact human health in the coming decades. An analysis led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health calculated that the city of Chicago could experience between 166 and 2,217 excess deaths per year attributable to heat waves using three different climate change scenarios for the final decades of the 21st century. The study was published May 1 edition of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
“Our study looks to quantify the impact of increased heat waves on human mortality. For major a U.S. city like Chicago, the impact will likely be profound and potentially devastating,” said Roger Peng, PhD, lead author of the study and associate professor in the Department of Biostatistics at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. “We would expect the impact to be less severe with mitigation efforts including lowering CO2 emissions.”
For the analysis, Peng and his colleagues developed three climate change scenarios for 2081 to 2100. The scenarios were based on estimates from seven global climate change models and from mortality and air pollution data for the city of Chicago from 1987 to 2005. The data were limited to the warm season from May to October of each year.
From 1987 to 2005, Chicago experienced 14 heat waves lasting an average of 9.2 days, which resulted in an estimated 53 excess deaths per year. In the future, the researchers calculated that excess mortality attributable to heat waves to range from 166 to 2,217 per year. According to the researchers, the projections of excess deaths could not be explained by projected increases in city population alone. The exact change due to global warming in annual mortality projections, however, is sensitive to the choice of climate model used in analysis.
“It’s very difficult to make predictions, but given what we know now—absent any form of adaptation or mitigation—our study shows that climate change will exacerbate the health impact of heat waves across a range of plausible future scenarios,” added Peng.
Authors of “Towards a Quantitative Estimate of Future Heat Wave Mortality Under Global Climate Change” include Jennifer F. Bobb of the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Claudia Tebaldi of the University of British Columbia, Larry McDaniel of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Michelle L. Bell of Yale University and Francesca Dominici of Harvard School of Public Health.
The research was supported by grants from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and Environmental Protection Agency.
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All the more reason to keep energy costs low so that affected populations can affort decent air conditioning. (Although I’m sure that isn’t the conclusion the study’s authors want their readers to reach)
Models my foot – this sounds like rank speculation . Of course , the EPA partially funded the study .
“Britain’s cold weather: deaths soar as winter takes its toll”
“16 Jan 2010
Deaths leapt by up to a fifth amid the longest spell of bitter weather in recent years, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.
Undertakers have reported the busiest winter for several years, with some even forced to take on extra staff to cope.
It comes in the wake of an outcry over the deaths of an elderly couple from Northampton, whose bodies lay in their freezing home, unnoticed for several days.
…
Last year 36,700 more people died during the winter months than in the summer the worst level for almost a decade.
But there are predictions that this year as many as 45,000 people could die this winter. ”
Hmmm
Once again, somebody relies on models as data, not the real data. Garbage in, garbage out.
“three different climate change scenarios”
translation: We used three computer games…………
“For the analysis, Peng and his colleagues developed three climate change scenarios for 2081 to 2100. The scenarios were based on estimates from seven global climate change models ”
What about a scenario where temperatures slowly rise and people slowly adapt to warmer climates?
What about scenarios where the temperature gets colder, and people die from exposure, a statistically more likely one?
But it “could” be the conclusion reached…
I might be mistaken, but I was under the impression that “global warming” was mainly caused by higher night temperatures – in other words the chart should show the smallest minimums, not the largest.
I wonder what mortality will look like when the powers that be squander limited resources to combat warming when we are looking at 20 years of cooling…
fear the cold ..my tomatoes don’t grow when the ground is frozen.
how about this ..if heat is bad why do people spend so much money to vacation in tropical places.
unfortunately there is no man made global warming …in fact I’m freezing.
Climate Change Analysis Predicts
==================================
This is getting spooky…………
It’s their predictions that have made them the laughing stock….
…but they keep making predictions
These are the same people that try to say “climate is not weather”…
..but for some bizarre sick reason they can’t help it, and are driven to keep
making predictions just like weathermen.
If they are not glorified weathermen, then stop making predictions like weathermen….
Clang, Clang, Clang, Clang, Clang! Pay no attention. That’s just by BS alarm going off.
Peng: “We would expect the impact to be less severe with mitigation efforts including lowering CO2 emissions.”
I notice Peng stopped short of telling us by how much CO2 would need to be lowered, and to what effect on temperature said lowering would have. This guy is just another climate whore, who I’m sure won’t be going hungry for grants any time soon.
It is astounding how similar the language is among all of these types of reports. Cut-and-paste. And none of them posit anything of substance. Maybe’s, perhapses, could-be’s…and out-and-out meaningless drivel like:
“The exact change due to global warming in annual mortality projections, however, is sensitive to the choice of climate model used in analysis.”
THAT essentially means nothing. Or, put another way, “we can’t attribute CAGW as a cause for anything, because we don’t know which model is right”.
Keep trying, Johnny Hops. You might figure it out using a hindcast, then “disappear” the result.
Why did they model 2081-2100? What use is that to anyone? It assumes that we won’t make any technological progress in the next 70 years, which is absurd. 70 years ago houses in Chicago were heated with coal and air-conditioning did not exist. Who can predict what houses will look like 70 years from now.
Why not model 2011-2020? Tell us how many extra deaths there will be due to global warming. US death rates go up in the winter as compared to summer, and overall global warming would be of benefit.
What month has the highest death rate?
Between 1995–2004 the average daily mortality rate differs with each month. The rate is highest in January averaging 430 a day.
http://www.chacha.com/question/what-month-has-the-highest-death-rate
‘“It’s very difficult to make predictions, but given what we know now—absent any form of adaptation or mitigation—our study shows that climate change will exacerbate the health impact of heat waves across a range of plausible future scenarios,” added Peng.’
Oh, look, there is a misprint in the above. It should read “It’s very difficult to make predictions without physical hypotheses, in fact it is impossible and we have no physical hypotheses, but that won’t stop us…” /sarc
Someday humankind will evolve to the point that people who are extrapolating from old graphs or interpreting model runs will understand that they are not making predictions. If you can predict an event then you can use the very same hypotheses to explain the event. If you cannot explain the event then you cannot predict it.
Surely, everyone is aware that a false prediction means that at least one of the hypotheses used to make the prediction is false. Why can peop0le not learn that there is nothing in an old graph or a model run that can be said to be false. Useless or dead, yes, but not false.
25 of the 50 all-time record high temperatures set for each US State happened in the 1930s. None were set in the 2000s. These facts are devastating to the agw argument.
We are about 2-4 weeks behind in our spring here in NE Oregon, and when it gets above 50F shorts and T-shirts come out. I cannot believe this hysteria…
Shameless scaremongering? Follow the money.
Rent seeking pseudo science? Follow the money.
Making up conclusions based solely on speculative models? Follow the money.
This is modern science in action today, yet it is not new by any means. It is Lysenko science reborn, the perversion of science to serve a political narrative with a belief based construction of a wholly dishonest series of conclusions. In simple terms telling lies, big whoppers, but the fact they are lies matters not to the authors, the ends justify the means. The final few words, bringing heart break and misery through the years. Those means immediately destroying any aims and nullifying any wished for good, still they do not learn. The means when not honest will never ever bring about anything other than misery, a concrete law never broken yet. The road to hell paved with good intentions. Lie to the public to persuade them to change as a society, the very minute the first lie was told the cause was lost, those involved cannot even realise that simplest of truths.
Codswallop, balderdash, bilge, bunkum, drivel, gibberish, hogwash, hooey, poppycock, rot, stuff and nonsense, tommyrot, balderdash, baloney, bilge, claptrap, eyewash, flimflam, tripe and twaddle. That just about sums up my opinion of this analysis.
Jay says:
May 3, 2011 at 9:17 am
“For the analysis, Peng and his colleagues developed three climate change scenarios for 2081 to 2100. The scenarios were based on estimates from seven global climate change models ”
What about a scenario where temperatures slowly rise and people slowly adapt to warmer climates?
What about scenarios where the temperature gets colder, and people die from exposure, a statistically more likely one?
What about a model based on reality instead of other models?
Ryan Maue says:
May 3, 2011 at 9:55 am
Question for the gallery: during what season(s) do the record highs mostly occur?
Just a guess, but my experience suggests that would be Winter.
So that’s why older people move to Florida so that they live less years.
Poverty kills people . No heating No air conditioning bad nutrition etc . But it’s a way to get less poor people.
“Question for the gallery: during what season(s) do the record highs mostly occur?”
I’ll guess winter