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
 |
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.
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
What is John Hopkins known for? Medicine. And while Medicine does get some dough, the major trough is climate science. So link medicine to it and you can feed in the trough with others.
I just hope there is more integrity and accuracy put into their medical research for the real ills of man. otherwise, their sheepskin will be worth more on the sheep than a wall.
Somehow people manage to survive temperatures greater than 115 F in Las Vegas but drop like flies when it gets over 100 F in Chicago.
But then as the study states: “No universally accepted definition of a heat wave is currently available”
From Extreme Weather Events, Mortality and Migration
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:Sraat9B65XQJ:www.econ.berkeley.edu/~moretti/weather_mortality+Chicago+excess+deaths+per+year+cold+weather&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESgRD0xjKENQOkbLPnbcj_3gnUgL53HkkyQojdfZKXlMvSe4IKvHuQT1nXC4sQysLJ-Pal5uri6T7JUjE8SOm51LLjzk4AwEPCyuYL1SrFYlK___3-GGvBAFA_yvnTlH_FfDtVpS&sig=AHIEtbQ6LOTPlDprfqH3Xwfy9d_gUktLlQ
Our results point out to widely different impacts of cold and hot temperature on
mortality. Consistent with accounts in the media, we find that hot temperature shocks are indeed associated with a large and immediate spike in mortality in the days of the heat wave. As expected, this effect is particularly large for elderly individuals. Remarkably, however, almost all of this excess mortality is explained by near-term displacement. In the weeks that follow a heat wave, we find a marked decline in mortality hazard.
In contrast, we find that the cold temperature days have a significant and long-
lasting impact on mortality rates. Cold waves are associated with an immediate spike in mortality in the days of the cold wave, but there is no offsetting decline in the weeks that follow. The cumulative effect of 1 day of extreme cold temperature during a 30-day window is an increase in daily mortality by as much as 10%.
The aggregate magnitude of the impact of extreme cold on mortality in the US is large. We estimate that the number of annual deaths attributable to extreme cold
temperature in the white population is 14,380, or almost 360 deaths per cold day.
We calculate that each year 4,600 deaths are delayed by the changing exposure to
cold temperature due to mobility. As a consequence, the average individual experiences an increase in longevity of 0.008-0.015 years per calendar year as a result of the lower exposure to cold weather. We compare this figure to the increase in longevity experienced in the United States over the past thirty years. Our estimates indicate that 3%-7% of the gains in longevity experienced by the US population over the past three decades are due to the secular movement toward warmer states in the West and the South, away from the colder states in the North. This evidence on mobility-induced changes to cold weather exposure identifies an important but previously overlooked explanation for increased longevity in the United States.
So why has moving to warm weather increased longevity more than dying in the heat?
Ryan Maue says:
May 3, 2011 at 9:55 am
Question for the gallery: during what season(s) do the record highs mostly occur?
===================================================
In the US summer….
…specifically July
In the future, the researchers calculated that excess mortality attributable to heat waves to range from 166 to 2,217 per year.
The rolling blackouts due to insufficient electricity coupled with high prices dissuading the poor from using it at all will be quite devastating. Air conditioning can be quite a life saver when available. People will talk about “the good old days” when it was reliable as well.
I have a couple of things I noticed about this one. First I congratulate them for making the full paper available for free. That’s not common these days.
However, why do they think they can fit a normal distribution to the deaths caused by intense heat events? The historical data does not fit any normal distribution. Assuming that the future data will seems faulty.
Next, why choose Chicago? I suspect the 1995 event in Chicago skews the data on the high side, creating more alarming results when you project that out.
Next, the number 2200 deaths for Chicago alone seems a bit out of touch with reality when the CDC says the current average for the entire USA is around 700/year.
And last but not least, the Union of Concerned Scientists (who are strongly pro-AGW) have the following to say:
“Increased heat waves due to climate change would cause more heat-related illness and death. It is still unclear whether the excess mortality will be offset by a decrease in deaths due to extreme cold (McMichael, 1996).”
That’s from the following source:
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/impacts/early-warning-signs-of-global-6.html
The insurance data are unequivocal – the death rate is higher in winter. Using that data I estimate that 1 deg C will increase the life expectancy of the average citizen of the developed world by about 6.3 months. The effect gets less as it gets warmer, but is still positive at 6 deg C above present.
I’m really getting sick at seeing biased science dragged out like this. It looks like a fad gone terribly out of control. Adding this decline of science accountability to unsustainable fiscal leadership at major states and DC and you really do have a catastrophe wrecking the country.
The Engineer says:
“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.”
You are quite right, that is the claim. The chart of records shows that during the ‘recent rise’ in global temperature the number of ‘records’ is unremarkable. Given the UHI issues and how they are handled, the speculative statements made in the article are, to say the least, exaggerated.
Quel surprise.
“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. ”
So, in a city like Chicago, what are the annual deaths due to:
* homicides
* auto accidents
* accidents at home
* climate change
???
(And what do the answers to the above say about the worth of this study?)
Government policy is creating deliberately higher energy prices to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels in order to reduce the chance of global warming. It is only a symbolic effort, since no significant impact will occur. They can only HOPE the policy will CHANGE the amount of global warming in the future.
On the other hand, if our weather, operating in cycles returns to cooler winters. Now our policy works only to make heating in winter far more difficult. As others have pointed out, winter cold deaths exceed summer heat deaths. Warmer is better in that regard. The Administration HOPE we won’t connect the dots regarding the effect of their CHANGE in policy.
I don’t have to HOPE there will be CHANGE in 2012. No OBL bounce for BHO. No actual economic recovery happened. Inflation rising. Unemployment remains high despite official statistical lies. The people will make sure real change occurs in Washington. No doubt.
Two guesses for winter record highs, and one for July. Someone should try and figure this out…
Douglas DC says:
May 3, 2011 at 9:51 am
“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 got mine out about 6 weeks ago so I wouldn’t miss Summer. Spring’s coming so “early” around here, it looks almost exactly like Winter!
*ahem* As the resident Public Health expert on WUWT, I need to point out that, in Chicago, a driving force for heat-related mortality is the increase in violent crime we experience as our summertime temperatures increase.
Older folks who are most vulnerable to higher temps and who tend to lack air conditioning are basically prisoners of their own houses due to all the gunplay, and sadly, they often expire in that environment. It’s terribly sad to watch.
http://www.irss.unc.edu/odum/content/pdf/Bollen%20Hipp%20Bauer%20Curran%20Bollen%202004%20SocForces.pdf.
The facts are obvious. If we do not take immediate steps to drastically reduce fossil fuel use and CO2 emissions 9-10 billion or more people will die by 2100. Of course, if we do absolutely nothing about CO2 the number of deaths will be virtually indistinguishable. In fact, even the most ardent proponents of the CAGW scam admit that, even with full and immediate implementation of all of their non solution solutions, any changes in the future climate will be all but unmeasurable. And since the diversion of our finite resources to unproductive paths and the intended and unintended consequences which are already occurring as a result have been overwhelmingly negative for human prospects, it would be entirely reasonable to assume that pursuing the current program of carbon demonization for another 90 years can only lead to massively more human mortality. Unfortunately, if you peruse the statements made by the biggest backers of CAGW alarmism, it’s also obvious that that result is not a bug, but a feature of their proposals.
Ryan Maue says:
May 3, 2011 at 11:20 am
Two guesses for winter record highs, and one for July. Someone should try and figure this out…
================================
lol, because you were too vague, Ryan.
If you were asking what season is daily record highs being broke, then winter could be a correct answer, in that if the record high for Dec 15th was 60F for a particular place, then if it were 61F last year, a record high in the winter would be logged.
But if you’re asking about when the record highs for a yearly high typically occurs, then obviously the answer in the Northern Hemisphere would be July/August. or Summer.
Beware of statisticians who predict death rates based on marginal and crappy data.
Teach those 2200 people in Chicago to take some salt, plenty, when it gets really uncomfortably hot and not one of them will get heat stroke. Ask any army veteran who ever served in a really hot theatre. Sadly I am really not allowed to tell them that as the current dictum is that salt is really bad for you. Nutrition science is not too different to climate science.
DD More says:
May 3, 2011 at 10:33 am
From Extreme Weather Events, Mortality and Migration
What you have demonstrated is the weakness of the Johns Hopkins research and the ignorance of those who took part in the peer review. Or perhaps the review was not too detailed as the result was what the ‘peers’ wanted to see?
Neither case makes one trust Johns Hopkins as the kind of establishment one would want to carry out medical research.
Ryan, this one says summer and July for the US:
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001416.html
and so does this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._state_temperature_extremes
@Ryan Spear Maue
You could state the question more clearly. “Record highs” as in “all-time highs”? As in “record highs for a day”? Record highs for a day anywhere in the world?
In the continental US, all of the all-time highs occurred in summer. Hawaii’s occurred in spring. Obviously, a “record high for a day” is going to occur in the season in which the day falls — it’d be hard to have a record high for January 10th occur in the summer (although it would happen that way in Australia).
#
The Engineer says:
May 3, 2011 at 9:26 am
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.
###
No no no, You got it all wrong. Pay more attention to the propagan, I mean science please. With CAGW we get a greater number of extreme events, or so the models say.
Ryan Maue says:
May 3, 2011 at 9:55 am
Question for the gallery: during what season(s) do the record highs mostly occur
Shouldn’t they, statistically speaking, be distributed evenly throughout the year? Of course an increase in heat island effect might make winter daily record highs favorably biased, since the heat island effect should be more profound in the winter.
This piece of so-called science could not have happened before the general use of PCs with gigabytes of memory and the programmed facility for very easy cutting and pasting, thus enabling the cooking up of new and scary climate-related ‘problems’ timed to happen some time in the future (long after our research group is around). Take a boiler-plate research grant proposal, paste in a suitably frightening title, pour in a mix of familiar models (that we know are non-predictive but the more the merrier), add a range of scenarios that sound vaguely possible, mix well and voila! A whole new scare story that did not involve any awkward testable hypotheses, gathering data of any kind or anything remotely connected with the scientific method.
The proliferation of such cut-and-paste pseudo science is absolutely outrageous and bordering on the outreight criminal..
Douglas DC says:
May 3, 2011 at 9:51 am
“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…”
A quick look at classic.wunderground.com reveals that the midwest has been well below normal all Spring. Today, St. Louis is running in the sixties when it normally is in the eighties.
Ken Harvey said:
“Teach those 2200 people in Chicago to take some salt, plenty, when it gets really uncomfortably hot and not one of them will get heat stroke. Ask any army veteran who ever served in a really hot theatre. Sadly I am really not allowed to tell them that as the current dictum is that salt is really bad for you. Nutrition science is not too different to climate science”.
I think Ken is right, in fact I think climate scientists, nutritionists AND Public Health “educators” are all the same people. We used to call them “busybodies”. I think they morph into each other
I wake up in the night in hot weather with terrible leg cramps, if I put more salt on my food I don’t get cramps. If it is hot, I perspire and lose the excess salt anyway. In UK we have a government that tells us not to eat too much salt, sugar, fast food, to eat 5 portions of fruit and veg a day, not to smoke, to drink no more than 14 “units” of alcohol a week if you are a woman – 21 if you are a man, take exercise, avoid unprotected sex, stick to speed limits etc etc etc.
If I do all of this I will live to be 100.
If I have do all of this, why on earth would I want to live to be 100?
The cramps alone would have me phoning the assisted suicide line; Oh I forgot that isn’t allowed either.
you mean more people than live today will die in the next 89 years? OMG! Global Age Disruption batman! 😉
If they’re predicting greater fatalities from heat waves they’re still correct but not because of climate change. They’re correct because the world is getting older on-average. Older people who are usually in worse physical condition than younger people have a harder time dealing with heat. They’re correct because we’re just now experiencing the final bubble of retirement of the worlds first baby boom.
Climaet models are the gift that keeps on giving. They provide the path to rich grants to ‘study’ just about every whacko effect that could be linked to a warmer earth. Never mind that it is not happening and won’t happen.
Yet again we have these computerised “excess mortality” prognostications trotted out. This time for those who will die between 2081 and 2100.
Do they honestly expect anyone to take this seriously? How many predictions (whether based on computers, goat entrails, tea leaves or crystal balls) for something to happen in 70 – 90 years time have turned out to have any predictive skill whatever?
They did, however, manage to get it published in what purports to be a serious journal.
Amazing.
But I sometimes wonder if anyone could be bothered to tot up all the shroudwaving prognoses together, what might be the result?
So we would have those who would meet their doom from global warming warming, global warming cooling, global warming sea level rise, global warming malaria, global warming water shortages, global warming photochemical smog, global warming storms, global warming crazed bunny rabbits and all the rest all added together.
Then add in all those who ‘may’ be struck down by breathing PM10s, those who die of allegies caused by ‘air pollution’, those killed by eating fish / meat / vegetables that have excess nitrates / phosphates / pesticides / hormones etc etc. Those who are not strictly vegan. Those subjected to ‘passive smoking’. Those who eat salmonella eggs or BSE cattle or Listeria cheese. Those developing cancer from too much UV. Those who don’t get enough sunlight. The obese.
I could go on. And on. And on. And on.
Not to mention those who get so depressed by the constant doom laden predictions that they top themselves.
My hunch is, that were you to add up all these vast predicted batallions of the doomed, you would find no one left at all.
Not a soul.
It’s beating a dead horse, but back in the day, when the king wanted to hear a happy minstrel song, the minstrel wrote such a song. When the king wanted to have a royal painting, the royal painter painted him one. When the king needed a wench, the royal w*monger procured one. Now the king wants to hear songs, see paintings, and know that his subjects are sc*wed, the royal climatologists are right at work.
Ryan Maue says:
May 3, 2011 at 11:20 am
Two guesses for winter record highs, and one for July. Someone should try and figure this out…
High anomalies or high temperatures. Anomalies, winter. Tempreatures, summer.
Of course it has nothing to do with obese unfit people not being able to cope with weather extremes.
No nothing as simple as that.
I wonder if they have charted people’s increasing weight against increasing mortality rates in the summer?
Douglas DC says:
May 3, 2011 at 9:51 am
“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…”
A quick look at classic.wunderground.com reveals that the midwest has been well below normal all Spring. Today, St. Louis is running in the sixties when it normally is in the eighties.
Conversely, in western europe, we are 6 weeks ahead with our main crop potatos, I’m eating strawberries and have been for more than a week, cherries on heavily laden trees and swimming pool is just over 21°c unheated and outside with no dome covering. Global warming is great.
Please can someone tell me how we can model anything beginning 70 years ahead? We have no idea of the technological advances that might have been made by then, or other changes that might have occurred. By then computer programs, for example, might have advanced sufficiently to capture all the capriciousness of Nature and show these results to be deficient (very likely).
Just what is the point of such studies?
Taphonomic says:
May 3, 2011 at 10:15 am
But then as the study states: “No universally accepted definition of a heat wave is currently available”
In the UK the recognised definition of a heat wave is three hot days followed by a thunder-storm
PhilJourdan says:
May 3, 2011 at 1:04 pm
Dave Wendt says:
May 3, 2011 at 11:43 am
9-10 billion or more people will die by 2100.
you mean more people than live today will die in the next 89 years? OMG! Global Age Disruption batman! 😉
I deliberately chose a fairly conservative number, because I didn’t attempt even a back of the envelope calculation. I suspect even a rudimentary analysis would yield a much larger projection for total mortality over the next 90 years, even if present trends of improving life expectancy continue and accelerate.
In the entire history of medical science, there has been only one disease discovered which is absolutely 100% fatal. Everyone who gets it dies from it eventually.
It’s called Life.
Jeremy says:
May 3, 2011 at 1:28 pm
If they’re predicting greater fatalities from heat waves they’re still correct but not because of climate change. They’re correct because the world is getting older on-average. Older people who are usually in worse physical condition than younger people have a harder time dealing with heat. They’re correct because we’re just now experiencing the final bubble of retirement of the worlds first baby boom
————————————————————————————–
The problem with older people is that they don’t feel thirsty. You have to force them to drink water. This means that the big problem is older people living alone.
On warm days mineral water and soup (salt) and someone to help them.
“Objectives: We estimated the future excess mortality attributable to heat waves under global climate change for a major U.S. city.”
A thousand pardons, O’ Most Empathetic and Credible of the Public’s own
grant seekingHealthcare Scientists, but perhaps you could also find – somewhere within the vastness of your incomparable, scientifically based concern for the wellbeing of Humanity – the extra incentive needed to estimate the excess mortality attributable to your own envisioned conversion of more “major” U.S. cities into what are now only Democrat Inner City Ghettos, but would allegedly soon becomeCommunism’sSustainability’sLivingrotting Icons, should your mitigation “cure” be enacted, as you suggest below?“Conclusions: The impact of future heat waves on human health will likely be profound, and significant gains can be expected by lowering future carbon dioxide emissions.”
“Profound, and significant gains”, indeed, especially as [not] compared to mere “adaptation“, whose complete absence over ~90 yrs. was rightly presumed as a given in the calculation of your paper’s comparative “excess mortality” figure at that future time, and thus also entered into the [lack of] significance of your completely subjective “
could possiblycan be expected” standard for mitigation’s alleged benefit, no doubt because of yourabsurd rent seekingUtopian Society’s natural evolution toward the production ofCommunism’s“Sustainability’sLivingrotting Icons”, our “major cities”?There are several studies which show that people in different climate regions have adapted to different optimum temperatures. Within a band of 3°C, mortality is lowest, below and above that band, mortality increases, but the 3°C band of lowest mortality is at lower temperatures in colder regions than in warmer regions.
More important is that cold related increased mortality is about a factor 10 higher than heat related increased mortality. See Keatinge e.a. for Europe:
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/321/7262/670
Bloke down the pub says:
May 3, 2011 at 2:13 pm
In the UK the recognised definition of a heat wave is three hot days followed by a thunder-storm.
Sorry to disagree but that is the definition of a British summer
Any serious paper that discusses deaths due to temperature changes MUST consider both cold and warm weather deaths. In other words … this paper qualifies as “not even wrong”.
The effect that AGW has on heat related deaths is significant and will likely become worse as long as idiots believe that they can combat AGW by curtailing industry and energy use. Having policies based on the belief that there is AGW, and that it is bad; means, fewer and fewer people have the means to maintain a safe climate for themselves.
Be SCARED, very SCARED. EPA paid for this study and will use the “conclusions” to justify more regulations.
Johns Hopkins is also infamous for the debunked study claiming that 700000 extra deaths in Iraq.
Real data from real observations in Australia shows no mortality effect from heat waves at all: http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/187_11_031207/nit10385_fm.html
And in fact deaths from heart disease dropped.
JPeden says: May 3, 2011 at 2:57 pm
Nice use of strikes there.
One suspects the public health researchers have been extraordinarily busy for years in their specific realm [petri-dishes] of remote and Indigenous health. Situated in the tropics they are now set to deduce that improving [culturally appropriate] housing conditions, education, employment and health services will improve the situation for the Aboriginal peoples living in the Kimberleys of Western Australia. The industry of anthropologists, architects, the arts, and urban planners had teamed up for decades with the environmentals (ecologists) previous to these public health experts, but their work achieved ?what? No individual property rights or change to rule of law for all. Though they did actively pursue a newer form from the rent-seeking economy in these remote areas. An economy based on a hybrid-carbon model as a solution was promulgated.
Unfortunately the same public health researchers use indigenous studies from Harvard and Canada.
Voting and working Australians were left totally in the dark that mortality OR morbidity rates had improved in these remote areas. As were a few generations of remote children and youth.
A rather sobering report was written in The Australian this weekend by Nicholas Rothwell. Well worth a read.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/living-hard-dying-young-in-the-kimberley/story-fn59niix-1226046773687
JPeden says: May 3, 2011 at 2:57 pm
And lastly, IF the Queen’s (or King’s) English had been taught to these people in the past thirty-forty years with the curriculum based in the sciences, arts and history as the missionaries did, the world views of the hocus-pocus, voodoo science which controlled and decimated human lives [and the development of industry] would have been replaced, as it should have. And countless children and youth would have been enjoying a life that most other Australian children enjoy.
In addition to the accepted role of salt in cooling by sweating, there is another process, exothermic transmutation of sodium to potassium. I know, I know, hard to believe by some, but Louis Kervran’s lifetime of meticulous experiments have not been contradicted by duplication.
http://educate-yourself.org/zsl/zslclouiskervran23jul02.shtml
Low energy transmutation is alive and well. As is cold fusion.
dave38 says:
May 3, 2011 at 3:22 pm
Bloke down the pub says:
May 3, 2011 at 2:13 pm
In the UK the recognised definition of a heat wave is three hot days followed by a thunder-storm.
‘Sorry to disagree but that is the definition of a British summer’
True enough. I missed summer last year, I was taking a shower.
According to the researchers, the projections of excess deaths could not be explained by projected increases in city population alone.
So, let me get this straight: one prediction does not “explain” another prediction and therefore global warming? This study should be titled: “Reification Gone Wild”.
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Ken Harvey says:
May 3, 2011 at 12:04 pm
Teach those 2200 people in Chicago to take some salt, plenty, when it gets really uncomfortably hot and not one of them will get heat stroke. Ask any army veteran who ever served in a really hot theatre. Sadly I am really not allowed to tell them that as the current dictum is that salt is really bad for you. Nutrition science is not too different to climate science.
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Exactly. I found that out as a kid — a few salt tablets along w/plenty of water miraculously cured my headaches & listlessness while working in extreme heat. Still works. Add to that a constantly wetted T-shirt (& in the worst conditions, a wetted head), I can work (reluctantly) for hrs in the heat.
Since salt is not politically correct nowadays, it’s cloaked under the guise of “sports drinks”.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
The rolling blackouts due to insufficient electricity coupled with high prices dissuading the poor from using it at all will be quite devastating. Air conditioning can be quite a life saver when available. People will talk about “the good old days” when it was reliable as well.
Self-fulfilling prophecy, perhaps?
Claim that more people will die due to the heat. When people do, (because electricity is too expensive, not because it’s actually hotter), you claim you were right.
There was a time when psychics would make predictions for the coming year and newspapers and other media would publish them. Then some bright reporter started publishing LAST years predictions along with THIS years predictions, and then just to rub salt in the wound, made a list of the previous year’s seminal events to see if any of the psychics predicted any of them. Totaly discredited the whole psychic community.
But they learned their lesson of course, predicting just one year into the future was way to easy to discredit, so they started going out…uhm… a few decades. Of course, psychics having been thoroughly discredited, they had to remarket themselves as prognosticators of climate science. Pretty much the same ripoff scheme but they use virtual tarot cards, virtual signs from above, virtual glowing balls only they can see into, and virtual experiments. They have however established a direct connection into your wallet via a proxy taxation system that seems quite real.
Dave, I have no reason to doubt your numbers. I was just being sarcastic at your well made point. Sarcastic to all the malthusians who think that if we make this place an eden, no one dies. You are dead on (pun intended) when you say the only thing that is 100% fatal is life. No one gets out of it alive.