- 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
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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…