- Summary:
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Cold weather kills 20 times as many people as hot weather, according to an international study analyzing over 74 million deaths in 384 locations across 13 countries. The findings also reveal that deaths due to moderately hot or cold weather substantially exceed those resulting from extreme heat waves or cold spells.
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Cold weather kills 20 times as many people as hot weather, according to an international study analyzing over 74 million deaths in 384 locations across 13 countries. The findings, published in The Lancet, also reveal that deaths due to moderately hot or cold weather substantially exceed those resulting from extreme heat waves or cold spells.
“It’s often assumed that extreme weather causes the majority of deaths, with most previous research focusing on the effects of extreme heat waves,” says lead author Dr Antonio Gasparrini from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in the UK. “Our findings, from an analysis of the largest dataset of temperature-related deaths ever collected, show that the majority of these deaths actually happen on moderately hot and cold days, with most deaths caused by moderately cold temperatures.”
The study analysed over 74 million (74,225,200) deaths between 1985 and 2012 in 13 countries with a wide range of climates, from cold to subtropical. Data on daily average temperature, death rates, and confounding variables (eg, humidity and air pollution) were used to calculate the temperature of minimum mortality (the optimal temperature), and to quantify total deaths due to non-optimal ambient temperature in each location. The researchers then estimated the relative contributions of heat and cold, from moderate to extreme temperatures.
Around 7.71% of all deaths were caused by non-optimal temperatures, with substantial differences between countries, ranging from around 3% in Thailand, Brazil, and Sweden to about 11% in China, Italy, and Japan. Cold was responsible for the majority of these deaths (7.29% of all deaths), while just 0.42% of all deaths were attributable to heat.
The study also found that extreme temperatures were responsible for less than 1% of all deaths, while mildly sub-optimal temperatures accounted for around 7% of all deaths — with most (6.66% of all deaths) related to moderate cold.
According to Dr Gasparrini, “Current public-health policies focus almost exclusively on minimizing the health consequences of heat waves. Our findings suggest that these measures need to be refocused and extended to take account of a whole range of effects associated with temperature.”
Writing in a linked Comment, Keith Dear and Zhan Wang from Duke Kunshan University, Kunshan, Jiangsu, China say, “Factors such as susceptibility or resilience have not been included in the analysis, including socioeconomic status, age, and confounding air pollutants…Since high or low temperatures affect susceptible groups such as unwell, young, and elderly people the most, attempts to mitigate the risk associated with temperature would benefit from in-depth studies of the interaction between attributable mortality and socioeconomic factors, to avoid adverse policy outcomes and achieve effective adaptation.”
Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by The Lancet. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Journal Reference:
- Antonio Gasparrini, Yuming Guo, Masahiro Hashizume, Eric Lavigne, Antonella Zanobetti, Joel Schwartz, Aurelio Tobias, Shilu Tong, Joacim Rocklöv, Bertil Forsberg, Michela Leone, Manuela De Sario, Michelle L Bell, Yue-Liang Leon Guo, Chang-fu Wu, Haidong Kan, Seung-Muk Yi, Micheline de Sousa Zanotti Stagliorio Coelho, Paulo Hilario Nascimento Saldiva, Yasushi Honda, Ho Kim, Ben Armstrong. Mortality risk attributable to high and low ambient temperature: a multicountry observational study. The Lancet, May 2015 DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(14)62114-0
were used to calculate the temperature of minimum mortality (the optimal temperature)
And what, may I ask, was this “optimal temperature”?
wondering myself – here’s a link to the supplementary materials that I am still slogging through:
http://www.thelancet.com/cms/attachment/2031328075/2048412994/mmc1.pdf
As best as I can tell from a brief skim, they calculated a Minimum Mortality Temperature (or optimum temperature) for each local they studied. So there is no “optimal temperature” in their study for “planet earth”. Nor would it make sense to calculate one. Since the infrastructure and housing is developed for local conditions, what is unusually warm (or cold) for one location is may be quite “normal” for another. Local variance from “normal” is the real driver here, not the global average.
But it would have been hilarious if they had calculated a global optimal temperature and gotten a value lower than the average global temperature.
and gotten a value lower than the average global temperature.
I meant higher, not lower.
davidmhoffer
Obviously we have to replicate Northern California weather at every point on Earth.
full article here:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(14)62114-0
Open access funded by Medical Research Council
There was a story here on WUWT a while back.
In many countries, it was the 75th percentile of days temperature for that locale that had lowest mortality.
So, warmer than average has minimum mortality.
Here is the link
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/03/02/what-is-the-optimum-temperature-with-respect-to-human-mortality/
In another study moving away from cold weather can give you 9 years more of life. “Deschenes and Moretti find that Americans are quietly implementing a longer-term solution, too. In recent decades, there’s been a large and continuous migration from cold Northeastern states to warm Southwestern states. The authors find that each year, 5,400 deaths are being delayed by this movement — and they’re being delayed for, on average, more than nine years each. The aggregate effect of that is huge: “our estimates indicate that 8%-15% 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.”
I vote for 70F. #B^j
Common sense say’s that. Its a shame no one told the Pres.
It’s obviously the case in the UK. We rarely hear of deaths due to heat, but cold is a real killer.
And fuel poverty due to unaffordable electricity resulting from renewable energy being subsidised by the electricity consumer to ‘tackle dangerous climate change’ is the major reason for excess winter deaths among the elderly and those vulnerable to cold weather.
A person with sufficient water can survive an indefinite period of extreme heat, without any special equipment.
A person exposed to extreme cold will die very quickly, unless equipped with very specialized clothing.
Without shelter, death from cold is only a matter of time.
The President may have been told that heat is worse by our National Weather Service. Their statistics say heat is worse, by far. Has NWS been politicized?
I have an acquaintance who worked for 30+ years as a forecaster for the NWS. He recently retired so i asked him his opinion about AGW and he stated unequivocally that it was a hoax, that politics was driving the NWS to support this as if it’s a fact. He added that now that he is retired he can voice his negative opinion about the matter since the NWS cannot revoke his pension. He said that no one who works for the NWS dares breathe a word contrary to AGW otherwise they will be fired.
Better yet, the data says that.
You might want to change the title of this article. Saying that cold is “worse” than warming in killing people makes me think that logically warming must be “better” at killing people, the precise opposite of what the article says.
Yes. This is an important article and the headline should be crystal clear. Perhaps something like:
“Cold Weather Is Far Deadlier Than Hot Weather”
By the way, this article is yet another that demonstrates that the climate skeptics, who have claimed for years that cold is deadlier, are once again correct.And that the climate obsessed are once again shown to be wrong, since they falsely claim that hot weather is the deadlier.
They claim, with zero evidence, that warming of more than a few degrees is unsurvivable, From the first time I heard this, it has made not a whit of sense to me.
People live in large numbers in locations far far hotter than has any chance of occurring at middle to high latitudes. And do so willingly!
Cold Kills!
Yes, the Afar region in Ethiopia is recognised as the hottest place on earth.
“temperature of minimum mortality?” that’s easy, it’s the internal body temperature of 98.6F
Neither hot nor cold kills if your prepared. I live in an area with a pretty hostile winter climate, and the number of people that die due to anything but their own stupidity is, approximately, zero. The problem with cold weather is that it takes more resources to survive, and if you’re caught without them you are doomed as doomed can be. With heat all you need is a bottle of water, a bit of shade, and the sense to sit down and quit.
Survival means nothing more than looking at the extreme events in the area where you live, and preparing for them. Plus or minus a few degrees on a global scale seems pretty meaningless.
A swimming pool helps too, or if you can’t afford one, a cold shower does wonders. I always fail to see why more people complaining of heat cannot see this.
Around 1998 I once visited New Dehli on a very hot day. 48-49 deg C. Around noon I went out to the hotels swimming pool to cool down. At start I was a bit puzzled by the fact that’ I was the only one there. After a few minutes I realized it was to hot under the sun umbrella, radiation from the umbrella. Then I tried swimming and found that to be even more uncomfortable so I had to run back to my room and it’s A/C. Around 16-17 o clock the swimmingpool was useable again.
I use a swimming pool and a big hat!
Doesn’t often get above 40deg here though to be fair.
….Sorry, should have stated 40deg CENTIGRADE,
Jer0me, in Arizona in the summer you have neither, the pool will be warm and the show will be warm, here in Mesa, they bury the water pipes 24 inches down, I don’t bother to turn the hot on when I take a shower in June, July and August. Pool end up as warm as bath water. although when you do get out the evaporate cooling will cool you down. Once you get use to the heat you generally won’t go to the pool unless it above 90. a hundred is much better. Oh I do go out in the desert in 100 plus temperatures and yes I do take plenty of water and I am generally near natural water and I am certain not out in the middle of the day. Oh by the way have grown up and spending my life in the Minnesota, and North Dakota I also been out in extreme cold, down to -50 F, that was not a wind chill temperature, I have been hunting and fishing in -15 to -20 degree temperatures, you need to be a lot more preparation in that weather, matches, the ability to build a fire, water and proper clothing, even with that if something should happen you can and may die. Even and accidental locking yourself out of you house in a remote area will kill you. God help you if you slip and break something. Yet the strange thing is it the temps in the 40 F range that kills the most, people go unprepared get wet and hypothermia set in and it is all over.
Mark…It is not stupidity when people cannot afford to heat (or cool) their homes. That is increasingly the case in locales where energy costs of wind turbines and solar panels are pushing up the cost of heat. Last week I attended a demonstration in Toronto. Most in attendance had traveled to the event from smaller cities and from towns and rural areas. Some addressed the crowd to explaine just how serious the situation is for them, especially in winter. Some cannot afford to pay both their mortgage fees and their heating bill and have to give up their homes or, if they stay in them, heat only one or two rooms. Others try to use cooking, laundry and cleaning appliances in the middle of the night with the hope that off-peak prices will keep their bills from skyrocketing beyond their already absurdly high levels. Many people have to take second jobs. That is particularly hard on people who have children and/or who are caring for elderly members of the family. Although I have not yet heard of anyone dying, it is a real possibility – especially for the elderly who are on fixed incomes and for the frail. If people are unable to pay their bills, the utility can turn off their access to electricity. The stupidity is not that of the victims. It is that of technocrats and of elected and unelected people who belong to the ‘sustainable’ crowd of occultists who are out to save Earth from Man.
Having hunted and fished the arctic circle numerous times, it can get so cold there you can die in the water in three minutes in the spring. I also believe the TV show survivor should do a series at the Arctic circle and see if any survive.
“I also believe the TV show survivor should do a series at the Arctic circle and see if any survive.”
I don’t think there is a production company in the world that can afford the insurance for such a show. And remember: someone is insuring Keith Richards for the Rolling Stones tour this summer…
True, and the best way to lower deaths due to both heat and cold is raising standards of living, a key element of which is cheap, readily-available energy, which warmunists hate.
Glad to see that someone finally compiled these statistics. I have been trying to do so for years, and have never found much information on cold versus hot. This is a valuable source.
What the heck are you doing?
It is a BIG mistake to popularize the known truth that cold kills. If it is realized by the hoard of dummies in the Green movement that cold weather is more dangerous than warm weather, Michael Mann-the-liar will simply reverse his Nature Trick and fake a plot that shows a cooling trend, all caused by CO2 no less.
You see, the socialists don’t care about facts. They don’t care about dialogue or science. They care about fear and catastrophe prognostications. If they know that cold is worse for humanity than warming, they will enroll the IPCC to turn Climate Change into Global Cooling, use all the same data and claim the situation is worse than they thought. They will do it without shame. Leftists don’t consider shame a virtue. mmm Truth is a problem too…for leftists… they are ideologues.
So shhhhh.
Aren’t they already doing this when they say that warming of the planet is causing “polar vortex” cold?
I expect that we’ll soon be hearing how the excess deaths,during spells of moderately cold weather, are caused by the extra CO₂ that we pump out when we’re trying to keep warm.
Not at all a surprise for those of us who have performed hard labor under both cold and hot conditions.
I’m not sure I get your point ?
I’ve had guys in my crew begging to swing the pick to break up the frozen ground, cuz it warms you up !!
Not so much during times of heat and humidity.
It’s often the marginally cold condtitions that fool people and result in hypothermia.
Duh!
Next thing we need to work on relates to the mistaken understanding about the irrefutable law of photosynthesis.
Sunshine + O2 + minerals +pollution = O2 +Sugars(food)
It needs to go back to:
Sunshine +O2 +minerals +CO2 =O2 +Sugars(food)
This way, CO2 can regain its scientifically solid standing as a beneficial gas.
plus H20
Thanks Bubba the left side should be H2O instead of O2.
Can we fix that?
Who would have thought that a mammal which evolved in warmer environment and which has physiologically adaptations to live in a warm environment would find cold a worse problem then heat.
Going from the equator to the poles, if one plots the number of different species of plants and animals versus latitude, it definitely decreases. I wonder what type of function best describes a least squares fit to this plot? – maybe a decreasing exponential function.
But the scammers have this covered. They just claim that “global warming causes more extreme cold” and people believe it! … despite that fact that Bill Nye the lying guy still hasn’t been able to stamp out the now unwelcome phrase “global warming” that was so popular in the late 90’s. http://dailycaller.com/2015/02/17/bill-nye-tells-msnbc-to-say-climate-change-not-global-warming-when-its-cold-out/
(Isn’t that two words Bill?)
(Isn’t that two words Bill?)
Just a typo, I think, He meant climatechange.
Can we please get a handle on what temperatures they are talking about?
Is moderate heat….85F?…….is extreme heat 100F?
Cold? 60F? -30F?
Where I live 100F is still work in the yard temp…..and below 70F we are wrapped in parkas
Us too, although it is so nice and warm where we live, we don’t have parkas! Below 20C brings out shivers…
When I lived in Tampa, it was easy to pick out the tourists in January and February.
They were the ones wearing t-shirts and shorts while all the locals were bundled up in their coats.
During the Vietnam War I did basic training in July and August at Fort Sam Houston, Texas with a buddy who had lived his entire life a hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle in Alaska. He claimed he had never experienced temperatures higher than in the fifties Fahrenheit.
The first week of basic training, the humidity and temperatures were in the nineties at Ft. Sam, and the poor guy from Alaska landed in the hospital with heat stroke.
The rest of us from the lower 48 states withstood the high humidity and heat, but in order to sleep, we would have to go to the showers several times during the night in our t-shirts and boxers; go under a shower to get them wet; and ten lay on top of our bunks with oscillating fans doing the evaporative cooling.
Depends on your Latitude.
Well you are right it is about acclimatisation of the human body. Other than Inuits whose metabolism is different from everyone else (or used to be before introduction of a Western styled diet) they can live in extreme cold on a diet of blubber and protein from seals, whales, and fish. They do not rely on carbohydrates for energy. Maybe some soup made from the stomach of seals and some berries in season. They are similar to the Neanderthals that lived mainly on meat with some carbohydrates. This was confirmed by Dr Neville Howard of the Diabetes Association, who trained in Canada and is a world renown endocrinologist. Also by the world renown late Professor Mike Morwood of UNE who found and described the Hobbit. Most of us, meaning Europeans mainly, can not survive long in cold climates living purely on meat and protein like the Inuits. We have to look at our ancestors and genetic background. Born in a temperate zone like UK or parts of Europe you need heaps and more carbohydrates in winter to fuel the inner fires. In a tropical climate you don’t need so much starches and sugars and rely on fruit etc., for you needs. But you go to a hot climate and insist on eating roast dinners in the summer you will get fat. Eating fish and salads and fruits or even bread will suffice, but you won’t burn off the fat content like you do in cold weather. Personally, getting sick in the cold weather, is a matter of contact with other humans too. Obviously virus’ are more prevalent in cities. But interesting one of the first who climbed Mt.Everest with Hillary, said, we did not get colds or flu until we returned home. He reckoned the immune system acts differently in cold weather than warmer weather. However, virus’ might be more active in cities and colder weather? That was in 1958 mind you. Personally I think since air conditioning and central heating we’ve become somewhat hot house flowers. Fifty years ago, one’s bodies got used to coming in from the cold, and huddling round a fire and wrapping up inside as well as when one went outside. Anyway, the problem with a coming colder climate will affect agriculture and animal husbandry. The soil will get colder so the microorganisms that keep plants healthy and fed, will hybinate. And colder climates don’t get the rain that warmer ones do.
No inconvenient truth. This research merely confirms what the concensus crowd already know – hot climate events do cause extra deaths. If they can prattle on about melting ice in West Antarctica while ignoring the other 90% we can expect them to selectively quote this research with no problem whatsoever.
After it’s a warming planet, the cold results are irrelevant
You can try this:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr076.pdf
The “planet” may be cooling, but people live in zones.
“The findings, published in The Lancet, also reveal that deaths due to moderately hot or cold weather substantially exceed those resulting from extreme heat waves or cold spells.”
Apparently the maxim “moderation in all things” doesn’t apply to weather. I wonder if they would draw the same conclusion if they accounted for the fact that there are many more days of moderately cold weather than extreme cold spells. If they compared the deaths per day that occurred, I would be very surprised if the deaths per day were not greater during extreme cold than moderate cold.
They are:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr076.pdf
and see the death/month in Canada as posted below by Allan McRae:
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/FOS%20Essay/DeathRate_Canada.jpg
Re the title, surely cold is better at killing people than warmth?
Headline flatly contradicts the story….
So with large numbers of people in energy poverty there is a socioeconomic policy with an adverse policy outcome. Yet the intention of the Administration and the EPA in the USA, the Department of Energy and Climate Change in the UK, is to deliberately place more people into energy poverty by raising the price of electricity.
They now have no excuse for their ignorance – energy poverty kills people in the cold. In UK up to 5000 in a single winter month. But of course the politicians are not concerned about people in lower socioeconomic groups dying – as shown by not a single question being asked in Parliament and no concern in the US about deaths from cold.
Lies…..All lies I tells yer….
Thank God the environmentalists only want to saddle CO2 with climate change they could have hooked their wagon to Cancer or Heart Disease. You see the science doesn’t matter except to the scientists. I’m of the opinion that looking for correlations doesn’t much serve science either except to muddy the waters of cause and effect. Science is not a compilation of actuarial tables.
Even if you do it in lab coats and record it on clip boards!
The only person with any skill, that I have found, who can effectively go fishing with correlations is Willis. That is because he honestly says he’s going fishing. And then he says, well that didn’t help any or sure, that’s what it should look like from over there … He knows he is exploring.
ps never did have a snappy lab coat in any of my labs but I do have a clipboard for coaching soccer
Cold killed 1/4 to 1/3 of Finns
J. Neumann and S. Lindgrén, 1979: Great Historical Events That Were Significantly Affected by the Weather: 4, The Great Famines in Finland and Estonia, 1695–97. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 60, 775–787. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/1520-0477(1979)0602.0.CO;2
Try to understand the issue of “cold” kills more than “warm”. Not that simple
However, the discussion here is simplistic and superficial, just like CO2 is the temperature driver.
Please cool down.
Increase in deaths during cold weather does not mean people are killed because of hypothermia. It simply means that “during the cold season” the number of deaths increases, known for years, in areas with four seasons. Yes four seasons. Do you want to compare the % deaths in the frigid parts of Alaska in January to the warm and humid parts of Florida in August?
Hypothermia due to cold exposure is one possible cause, but seldom mentioned on a death certificate unless there is clear evidence for such. Not taking here of someone falling in frigid water. The cold season brings in the flue, pneumonia, older humans with snow shoveling risks etc.,etc. Good grief. No surprise here, the % dying during cold months is higher, remember cold months in an area with four seasons. You continuously complain against CO2 as the only issue, and now cold is the only issue. Cold is better than warm or warm is better than cold. You must be kidding. Nonsense.
With heat waves, we have a simpler issue. Yes, hyperthermia will be listed on death certificates. Heat waves will start, stay a short period when deaths will be noted, the news is on and on and on because of continuous complaints by the citizens, shelters with cool air, amplified by the meteorologists, and then the wave is gone. Not so with cold. Much less drama about cold. More news that this year the influenza virus is not working so well, kids are catching the flue in school etc.
May i also add that deaths during extreme cold are often due to fires caused by folks’ choices of heat sources, driven by their poverty.
(a St. louis band)
Indeed. Quite correct.
In the USA, fires in mobile homes during the winter months.
Fortunately, new mobile homes are built to be much more resistant to fire ignition and propagation.
But then, the other side of the coin is “more expensive”.
In urban-STL, electric heaters cause the bulk of the fires due to overloaded knob-and-tube wiring in outdated structures. I wonder if those deaths are attributed to cold or not.
Sorry, should have also mentioned faulty extension cords.
You added a few more examples (variables). Yes. All added. They occur in the winter months.
This is why “cold” vs “warm” is not something to blame either way. Cold has a number of variables associated with “cold” and warm as a number of variables associated with “warm”.
rd50 May 21, 2015 at 1:37 pm
Dawtgtomis May 21, 2015 at 2:44 pm
Perhaps you should read the post again
These were deaths caused by non-optimal temperatures not by fires or heart attacks shoveling snow. More deaths occurred due moderate cold than extreme cold or moderate or extreme heat. QED moderate relatively cold temperatures are more dangerous than moderate or extreme heat. This is contrary to the alarrmist warmist claims
OK. I am willing to do so.
You told me that deaths were caused by non-optimal temperatures.
So, tell me what you know is ‘optimal temperatures”
Ian W and rd50
This is an attribution study using demographic data of deaths associated with ambient temperatures in localized, statistical estimates of optimal temperatures. They’ve used probability estimates and multivariate regression (best I can see) for association. Some of their statistical stuff could be real hand waving – I’m still trying to follow their scheme.
They seem to have no other data to imagine “cause”. Fact is, they don’t know the cause of death.
Best they can say is someone died at a time when temp was not optimal … and the cooler and warmer bounces around a localized, statistical estimate of optimal. Lot of unknown and certainly uncontrolled factors here. So considering other factors with heat and cold, summer and winter is completely appropriate.
I agree that the cooler outweighing the warmer and moderate more than extreme is interesting (and contrary to the rant), but pretty early times in this line.
The argument that warmists make is global warming is bad and we need to do things to cool the world.
This research shows that as far as mortality goes, cold is much worse than warmth. It doesn’t matter what particular reason is used to kill people, the end result is that lot more of them (20 times more) die when it’s cold than when it’s warm.
So I do not get your point at all. Whether it’s a flu or faulty wiring or elderly person locking herself out of the house or slipping on the ice and falling – dead is dead, and all of it was caused by cold.
It is not caused by cold.
Look. If you are in a four seasons area.
Obviously you go from spring, summer, fall, winter.
So, If you think that if as you stated “dead is dead, and all of it was caused by cold” then fine.
You will die in the winter. So be it.
So, out of 4 seasons, there is one that causes most deaths. This season is also the coldest. But the deaths are not caused by cold?
I must be very slow. Can you please explain it to me one more time?
Here’s the NFPA report:
http://www.nfpa.org/research/reports-and-statistics/fire-causes/appliances-and-equipment/heating-equipment
I can’t really say how it ties to extreme cold, that would require correlation of fire events with extreme cold on a local basis. Is that kind of info even available?
The answer is NO.
The report does not try to provide you with the info you asked and the kind of information you are asking is not available and, probably, never will be. Quite frankly, here are the facts. In the USA we now have very few fires with fire victims. About 3,000 fire victims/year.
..cold is far worse than global warming at killing people….
That’s all right, then. It’s well established that Global Warming can cause ANYTHING, including periods of intense cold…
The NFPA report you quoted is very reliable but as you stated is not related to extreme cold.
The USA had the highest fire deaths/population as properly documented in the early 1970s, followed by Canada.
The report “America Burning” was then published to bring attention to this, about 13,000 fire deaths/year in USA. This number was much more than the number of “weather” deaths, cold or warm reported in the USA, about 5,000.
However, why tolerate this number of fire deaths when it was obvious it could be decreased using different approaches in building codes.
This was done. Today we have about 3,000 fire deaths/year in the USA. Huge drop from about 13,000/year.
Now, if you want to look at current fire deaths in USA and Canada the statistics are there every years at NFPA for the USA.
Again, structural fires are prevalent in the cold areas and fire deaths follow.
No surprise. Nothing to do with global warming, simply follow the seasons.
Yes, neighborhood education and smoke detector placement efforts by firefighters have improved the survival rate immensely. Still there are so many reports here of space heaters and fatalities. Particularly in the ghettos like East St Louis. Odd place to find it but this report spells it out:
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/02/14/fire-f14.html?view=print
Yes on both issues you are reporting. Firefighters were very involved. Eyes on the ground, not statisticians in their air conditioned offices!
Now, in the report you provided, it is also obvious. Poor people vs. Rich people, in the same cold area.
You know the answer. Cold + Poverty is not good.
Now, add building codes changes requiring sprinkler system in public spaces such as restaurants, hotels, motels, apartment buildings, condos, factories, you name it. Huge effect. I don’t know of a single death (in a cold or warm area) when a sprinkler system was present and a fire started. Very effective and thanks to firefighters efforts, fire protection engineers, etc. for improving the building codes to prevent fires and fire deaths.
Now take a look at media reports about factories in Asia. Fire deaths of workers, coming from warm areas, making products for the western world. So now we have. Warm + Poverty is not good.
More cold -> more deaths -> fewer people = Green success!
Not true.
Intent is inferred.
It rhymes, so it must be true!
If the glove don’t fit…
Hypocrisy in high places is nothing new; but the extent to which it pervades the Climategate Culture – which gave us the hockeystick history of 20th-century global warming – knows no bounds.
Hard on the heels of recent revelations of the behind-the-scenes machinations that led to the IPCC’s contending that the current level of earth’s warmth is the most extreme of the past millennium, we are being told by Associated Press “science” writer Seth Borenstein (25 November 2009) that “slashing carbon dioxide emissions could save millions of lives.” And in doing so, he quotes U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius as saying that “relying on fossil fuels leads to unhealthy lifestyles, increasing our chances for getting sick and in some cases takes years from our lives.”
Well, if you’re talking about “cook stoves that burn dung, charcoal and other polluting fuels in the developing world,” as Seth Borenstein reports others are doing in producing their prognoses for the future, you’re probably right. But that has absolutely nothing to do with the proper usage of coal, gas and oil. In fact, any warming that might result from the burning of those fuels would likely lead to a significant lengthening of human life.
In an impressive study recently published in The Review of Economics and Statistics, for example, Deschenes and Moretti (2009) analyze the relationship between weather and mortality, based on “data that include the universe of deaths in the United States over the period 1972-1988,” wherein they “match each death to weather conditions on the day of death and in the county of occurrence,” which “high-frequency data and the fine geographical detail,” as they write, allow them “to estimate with precision the effect of cold and hot temperature shocks on mortality, as well as the dynamics of such effects,” most notably, the existence or non-existence of a “harvesting effect,” whereby the temperature-induced deaths either are or are not subsequently followed by a drop in the normal death rate, which could either fully or partially compensate for the prior extreme temperature-induced deaths.
So what did they find?
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V12/N47/EDITb.php
h/t
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/contributor/28218860
Hope I’ve got it right this time.
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2015/5/21/the-extraordinary-benefits-of-global-warming.html#comment21322831
There is overwhelming historic evidence that a cooling Earth is devastating to life.
During the Wolf Grand Solar Minimum (1280~1350; the real starting point of the LIA) winters were brutally cold leading to: shortened growing seasons, reduced sunlight hours from increased cloudiness, early frosts killing crops, famines, human and farm animal exposure deaths, advancing glaciers destroying entire towns, avalanches wiping out mountain towns, frozen rivers disrupting transportation/trade and many freakish cold-weather weather events.
By the end of the Wolf GSM, the effects of cold weather wiped out roughly 25% of Europe’s population, which was immediately followed by the Black Death (1346~53), that killed an additional 50% of the remaining population not killed by the cold…
The Wolf GSM was followed by the Sporer GSM (1450~1550), the Maunder GSM (1645~1715) and the Dalton GSM (1790~1820), which all contributed to what is known as the Little Ice Age; a period of worldwide famines, brutally cold winters and cold weather related deaths.
The world should be celebrating the +0.8C of LIA RECOVERY, not demonizing it… The Modern Warming Period (1850~present) marks the fastest growth of: economies, science, medicine, technology, transportation, crop yields, living standards and per capita income in human history, which are all DIRECTLY related to the positive effects of: a warming planet, capitalism, cheap and abundant fossil fuels and higher CO2 levels..
Ironically, the Left’s stated goal is to eliminate: global warming, capitalism, fossil fuels and to reduce CO2 levels….
Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it…
This stuff is an insult. Apparently the POTUS thinks we are morons.
Treat this with the contempt it deserves. Dan Quayle is a genius compared to Barack Obama.
Well, we did elect him….
Well granted half the population is below average intelligence, but I think some of the brighter ones were voting based on greed.
Fools – banging on about “the benefits of warming” and “the benefits of increased CO2” – you’re not kidding anyone, there are NO benefits to increased CO2, every effect it has on every process is bad, even if it appears to be good to non-climate-scientist simpletons.
Some people might not die from cold but their now extended lives will be miserable because they’ll be a bit too warm, it might be kinder to just let them go. Similarly when crop yields increase due to extra CO2, climate scientists have determined through Simulated Horticultural Yield TEsting (SHYTE) computer-models that those crops might contain less ‘goodness’ so people would be much better off starving to death.
Note how antisocial and vicious the global warmists who fear CO2 really are.
Telling people it is better to ‘starve to death’ than eating bountiful food due to more CO2 in the air for plants to eat is insane.
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
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Cold kills. Warmer is better.
Actually, cold is BETTER, not worse, at killing people than is global warming. You might want to reword the title of this article.
Most of us consider death bad. More bad is worse, not better.
“cold is far worse than global warming at killing people”
Idea is reversed by poor sentence composition.
Finally! I have been writing about this issue since at least 2009:
The number of deaths as evidenced by excess winter mortality stats is daunting – see my post from 2014 below.
The winter mortality stats for Spain and Portugal are among the highest in Europe.
This is what happens when ignorant politicians fool with energy policy.
Regards, Allan
Following are my posts from 2013 and 2014:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/24/claim-climate-change-caused-more-deaths-in-stockholm/#comment-1457849
[excerpt]
Winter Mortality is greater than Summer Mortality across Europe (and elsewhere).
…
This reality is reflected in positive numbers for Relative Excess Winter Mortality (“Winter Mortality” also described as Coefficient of Seasonal Variation in Mortality or CSVM), which measures the increased incidence (in the Northern Hemisphere) of mortality from December to March inclusive versus the rest of the year.
Winter Mortality in Sweden is about +0.10 or ~10%, similar to Norway, Finland, Germany, Netherlands etc., and these are comparatively low numbers.
Much higher Winter Mortality occurs in the UK, Ireland, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain. This may seem to be counter-intuitive because these countries are warmer.
However, I suggest that countries that adapt well to winter have lower Winter Mortality Rates that countries that do not.
I further suggest that as the climate cools, which I think will in the near future, we can expect to see increased suffering and death in Europe and elsewhere, in part because many countries have severely damaged their energy systems due to the foolish adoption of wind and solar power schemes that are both costly and ineffective.
This bleak probability reflects, in my opinion, an egregious error in government climate and energy policy that will cost many lives.
The environmental movement, which has promoted this “green energy” debacle, should be held primarily responsible for this unfolding tragedy.
Hope I am wrong.
Regards, Allan
*******************
Background Information:
Winter Mortality (December to March inclusive) is greater than Summer Mortality across Europe (and elsewhere).
See Figure 3 of the following paper. Relative Excess Winter Mortality in Sweden is about 0.10 or ~10%.
Winter Excess Mortality: A Comparison between Norway and England plus Wales
http://ageing.oxfordjournals.org/content/25/5/343.full.pdf
See Figure 3 – Relative Excess Winter Mortality in Sweden is about 0.10 or ~10%.
“Bivariate analyses showed that the excess winter mortality (December-March) in England and Wales was nearly twice as high in old as in middle-aged people, and also markedly higher than in Norway, while the association between excess winter deaths and influenza was of a similar magnitude.”
Some of this reality is related to the following observation:
“Using data from 20 Western European countries, a highly significant positive correlation (R = 0.71, p < 0.001) was found between total mortality rates for the elderly (65 years and over) and relative excess winter mortality.”
Excess winter mortality in Europe: a cross country analysis identifying key risk factors
http://jech.bmj.com/content/57/10/784.full
This study does not include Sweden.
Table 1 – Coefficient of seasonal variation in mortality (CSVM) in EU-14 (mean, 1988–97)
CSVM 95% CI
Austria 0.14 (0.12 to 0.16)
Belgium 0.13 (0.09 to 0.17)
Denmark 0.12 (0.10 to 0.14)
Finland 0.10 (0.07 to 0.13)
France 0.13 (0.11 to 0.15)
Germany 0.11 (0.09 to 0.13)
Greece 0.18 (0.15 to 0.21)
Ireland 0.21 (0.18 to 0.24)
Italy 0.16 (0.14 to 0.18)
Luxembourg 0.12 (0.08 to 0.16)
Netherlands 0.11 (0.09 to 0.13)
Portugal 0.28 (0.25 to 0.31)
Spain 0.21 (0.19 to 0.23)
UK 0.18 (0.16 to 0.20)
Mean 0.16 (0.14 to 0.18)
******************
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/10/even-china-cant-jump-start-the-electric-car/#comment-1787518
[excerpt]
A few comments on Alternative Energy, Natural Gas Prices, and Excess Winter Mortality:
Grid-connected wind power and solar power are uneconomic nonsense at this time. Intermittency is the biggest problem. This may change if a "super-battery" is ever developed, but this seems unlikely.
Corn ethanol is uneconomic at this time – as are most other biofuels, with the exception of waste product and novel feedstocks such as tallow, wood chips, straw, algae, etc. that may be economic now or in the future.
Cheap abundant energy is the lifeblood of modern society. When uninformed politicians fool with energy systems, real people suffer.
My main concern at this time is with Excess Winter Mortality across the Northern Hemisphere – our problem in North America is that both Environment Canada and the USA National Weather Service have predicted a warmish winter, and it is going to be very cold in the central and eastern two-thirds of Canada and the USA – much like last year – so people may be unprepared. In Europe and across Russia it will be even colder compared to seasonal norms, but at least they have a realistic cold weather forecast so are forewarned.
The great advantage of North America is cheap energy – even though natural gas prices have risen sharply in the past two weeks, wholesale natgas is still just over $4/GJ on NYMEX. In Europe, natural gas prices are 2-3 times higher, thanks in large part to greens who oppose fracking of gassy shale formations.
In Northern climes, many more people die in Winter than in Summer.
For Europe and all of Russia:
Assume a very low Excess Winter Mortality Rate of 10% (it varies from about 10% to 30% in Europe);
About 1% of the population dies per year in Europe and Russia, or about 8 million deaths out of about 800 million people;
The Excess Winter Mortality of this population is (4 months/8 months) * 10% * 8 million = at least 400,000 Excess Winter Deaths per year.
This is an average number of Excess Winter Deaths across Europe and Russia – it varies depending upon flu severity, cold etc.
Many people in Europe, especially older people on pensions, cannot afford to adequately heat their homes so are especially susceptible to illness and death in winter.
The population of North America subject to cold weather is less than half the above.
I hope I’ve slipped a decimal or two – these numbers seem daunting.
In any case, please bundle up and stay warm this winter.
Regards to all, Allan
You can look at the interactions between temperature and income and a variety of other factors in this recent article:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr076.pdf
Thank you rd40
The paper our refer to at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr076.pdf concludes:
“During 2006–2010, about 2,000 U.S. residents died each year from weather-related causes of death.”
This very low number (2000 weather-related deaths per year) must reflect a much different methodology from the European and Canadian stats, which are simply based on the total death numbers and their variation from month-to-month.
I have recalculated the Canadian figures in the Friends of Science graph below from the original StatsCan data and they are correct.
http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cansim/a05?lang=eng&id=1020502
Canada:
“The graph shows that the death rate in January is more than 100 deaths/day greater than in August.”
The American figures are probably similar, but about ten times greater (scaled up for population), that is:
USA (approximate):
The USA death rate in January is more than 1000 deaths PER DAY greater than in August.
I’ve tried for a while and cannot find USA mortality data by month. – if anyone finds it, please post the results.
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/FOS%20Essay/DeathRate_Canada.jpg
“The graph shows that the death rate in January is more than 100 deaths/day greater than in August.
Cold related illnesses like the flu, accidents on icy roads make winter a dangerous time.”
While I was in the USAF, the number of Vets receiving a military funeral service was similar to the above graph. It was very evident that cold winters were both depressing and killing those who could not stay comfortably warm.
“…And the world’s a little poorer, for a soldier died today. He will not be mourned by many…” (A Soldier Died Today) by A. Lawrence Vaincourt
The services with no recipient to accept the US flag were especially disturbing. So, since this is Memorial Day weekend it is appropriate to remember:
DECORATION DAY
On May 5, 1862, General John A. Logan, leader of an organization for Northern Civil War veterans, called for a nationwide day of remembrance later that month. “The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land,” he proclaimed. The date of Decoration Day, as he called it, was chosen because it wasn’t the anniversary of any particular battle.
Similar pattern in USA as shown here:
http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/library/chart-graph/us-average-daily-death-month
Should be interesting to look at the statistics for the North Eastern part of the USA for last two years.
Thank you highflight.
Best wishes on Memorial Day to my American friends, and especially to all the veterans.
We understand the essential nature of war, all too well.
My uncle survived the Dieppe raid in 1942 and rescued the only 10 survivors – there were about 90% fatalities in his Company. He was seconded for the raid to the Essex Scottish Regiment of Windsor, Ontario.
My great-uncle is interred in France – he enlisted at the outset of WWI and was killed in action just six weeks before the Armistice. He was my grandmother’s youngest brother and was deeply mourned.
In 1778 the 78th Seaforth Highlanders were formed. When the agreement the men struck at enlistment was broken, they encamped high on Arthur’s Seat near Edinburgh and dared the rest of the army to advance. Negotiations ensured, and the enlistment agreement was upheld. The incident became known as “the affair of the wild Macrae’s. It was the only successful mutiny in the long history of the British armed forces.
This year we commemorate the 300th Anniversary of the Battle of Sherrifmuir of 1715 We lost about 90% of our adult men that day. We’ve had better days…
During the Scottish-Norwegian War the Clan MacRae fought for King Alexander III of Scotland at the Battle of Largs in 1263 against the Norse Viking army of King Haakon IV of Norway. The Norwegians were defeated and driven out of Scotland.
“Of a’ the Heilan’ Clans, MacNab is most ferocious, except the MacIntyres, the MacRaes and the Mackintoshes.”
Significantly, 2015 is also the 800th Anniversary of Magna Carta Libertatum, “the Great Charter of the Liberties” of 1215.
Liberty and Rule of Law are the mainstays of all decent, prosperous civilizations. They must be defended. It will always be so.
Excellent rd thank you. You said:
Similar pattern in USA as shown here:
http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/library/chart-graph/us-average-daily-death-month
Should be interesting to look at the statistics for the North Eastern part of the USA for last two years.
I strongly agree with you – let’s see if the regional data is available.
Key fact from your cited article:
“In 2008, there were 108,500 ‘excess’ deaths during the 122 days in the cold months (January to March and December.)”
These figures are HUGE and daunting – AND THEY HAPPEN EVERY YEAR…
The USA death rate in January and February is more than 1000 deaths/day greater than in July and August.
Could someone from the warmist camp please explain to me again why warm is bad and cold is good? This only seems true if you are trying to kill people.
Excess winter deaths up 29% – The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/nov/26/excess-winter-deaths-up-29
[excerpt]
In the past year, the Office for National Statistics estimates that 31,000 excess deaths were due to winter conditions.
Like other European countries, more people die in the UK in winter than in summer – but how many more? Each year since 1950, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has looked at excess winter mortality, which parts of the country have the highest numbers, how old the individuals were and what the average winter temperature was.
31,100 excess deaths
Excess winter mortality was 31,100 in England and Wales in 2012/13 – up 29% from the previous year. Figures for Scotland were also released recently showing a much smaller increase in winter deaths, up 4.1% to 19,908. In Northern Ireland meanwhile, the raw numbers were low but the increase was large – a rise of 12.7% to 559 deaths.
The methodology behind the maths is surprisingly simple; the ONS take an average of deaths in winter (those in December to March) and subtract the average of non-winter deaths (April to July of the current year and August to November of the previous year). The result is considered ‘excess’.
[end of excerpt]
________________________
Excess Winter Mortality Stats for England & Wales (combined), Scotland and Northern Ireland
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/28/britain-announces-emergency-measures-to-prevent-winter-blackouts/#comment-1774361
[excerpt]
Excess Winter Mortality in England and Wales is about 25,000 per year in recent years..
The UK rate is about 20% or about twice that of the Scandinavian countries.
Excess Winter Mortality in England and Wales was as high as 100,000 in 1950-51.
See Fig, 1 at
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_288362.pdf
__________________________________
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/24/claim-climate-change-caused-more-deaths-in-stockholm/#comment-1457996
[excerpt]
24,000 is the 2011-2012 Excess Winter Deaths for England and Wales only, down 8% from the previous year. Separate stats are kept for Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Excess Winter Deaths in England and Wales in 1950-51 totalled about 100,000 – so some progress has been made.
Excess Winter Mortality rates are typically much lower in colder Scandinavian countries, and higher in some warmer countries in Southern Europe like Spain and Portugal.
It is appropriate to pause for a while, and recognize that these were all real people, who “loved and were loved”.
Regards, Allan MacRae
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_288362.pdf
http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/statistics/theme/vital-events/deaths/winter-mortality/
http://www.nisra.gov.uk/demography/default.asp32.htm
Here is a paper I just found on Australia cold mortality.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150112110820.htm
Australians are more likely to die during unseasonably cold winters than hotter than average summers, research has found. The researchers analyzed temperature, humidity and mortality data from 1988 to 2009 for Adelaide Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney to come up with their findings.
Finally! I have been writing about this important reality since at least 2009.
I could have done without the “respected medical journal” and more readily accepted something like, ‘If even this politically biased journal is saying it, you’ve lost.”
From the Oh No We are All Going to Die Dept.
Five Ways to Stop the Threat to Global Health From Climate Change: How does the Lancet Commission propose to approach this enormous collage of loss? Five main conclusions arise from their work. Let me consider each in turn.
First, we need to think of it in terms of opportunity.
Second, achieving a decarbonized global economy as no longer primarily a technical, economic or financial question, it is political.
Third, we need to proceed as though global health equity, sustainable development and the international policy response to climate change are inseparable.
Fourth, we must make the most of the vital role the health community can play in tackling climate change.
Fifth, framing climate change as a health issue will help counter opposition from vested interests, accelerating progress towards meaningful action.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeremy-leggett/title-tbc_b_7423230.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+yahoo%2Fcklq+%28Yahoo%21+News%3A+Weather+News%29
Co2 dives the climate has become a medical thing.
Dale Baranowski – Your comment about nobody speaking up because of fear of being fired. My blood ran cold even thinking about that. Wasn’t that problem rife in Germany during the NAZI era, everybody afraid to speak up, and no need to tell you what happened there, take a look at the timeline, starts in early 1930’s and then ramped up to concentration camps? Lots of information on the net. One of my most loved teachers in the 1950’s was a refugee from a camp, not Jewish, and friends of my family had taken her in so I knew her story, family wiped out.
There is a reason that most humans live in warmer portions of the planet. Duh..
The findings also reveal that deaths due to moderately hot or cold weather substantially exceed those resulting from extreme heat waves or cold spells.
____
Common knowledge.
Mentioning prohibited.
____
Such world prohibits. In the end. It’s endurance.
Sustainability.
____
Voting per distance. In miles.
Hans
Incidentally, if you visit the Museum of the Occupation in Riga, Latvia, you learn that in the Soviet Gulag, where many Latvians and others were dispatched, outdoor work was supposed to be curtailed when the temperature dropped below minus 38 degrees Celsius because of the mortal hazard. Whether or not this rule was observed is another matter. Temperature data, as we know, can be subject to “adjustment”. Of course, you can die of cold and fatigue at temperatures far above this level.