The doom and gloom, hell and high water howling seems to have hit a traffic obstacle in the form of a new paper in the UK that shows warmer weather saves lives. I really liked this part:
…they found there were only 0.7 death per million people per year due to warming in the hottest part of the year, but a decrease of fully 85 deaths per million people per year due to warming in the coldest part of the year, for a phenomenal lives-saved to life-lost ratio of 121.4.
From CO2 Science:
Lives Saved per Life Lost Due to Global Warming
Reference
Christidis, N., Donaldson, G.C. and Stott, P.A. 2010. Causes for the recent changes in cold- and heat-related mortality in England and Wales. Climatic Change 102: 539-553.
Background
The authors write that “the IPCC AR4 states with very high confidence that climate change contributes to the global burden of disease and to increased mortality,” citing the contribution of Confalonieri et al. (2007) to that document.
What was done
In an effort handsomely suited to evaluate this very-high-confidence contention of the IPCC, Christidis et al. extracted the numbers of daily deaths from all causes from death registration data supplied by the UK Office of National Statistics for men and women fifty years of age or older in England and Wales for the period 1976-2005, which they divided by daily estimates of population “obtained by fitting a fifth order polynomial to mid-year population estimates, to give mortality as deaths per million people,” after which they compared the death results with surface air temperature data that showed a warming trend during the same three-decade period of 0.47°C per decade. In addition, they employed a technique called optimal detection, which they describe as “a formal statistical methodology” that can be used to estimate the role played by human adaptation in the temperature-related changes in mortality they observed.
What was learned
As expected, during the hottest portion of the year, warming led to increases in death rates, while during the coldest portion of the year it lead to decreases in death rates. More specifically, the three scientists report that if no adaptation had taken place, there would have been 1.6 additional deaths per million people per year due to warming in the hottest part of the year over the period 1976-2005, but there would have been 47 fewer deaths per million people per year due to warming in the coldest part of the year, for a lives-saved to life-lost ratio of 29.4, which represents a huge net benefit of the warming experienced in England and Wales over the three-decade period of warming. And when adaptation was included in the analysis, as was the case in the data they analyzed, they found there were only 0.7 death per million people per year due to warming in the hottest part of the year, but a decrease of fully 85 deaths per million people per year due to warming in the coldest part of the year, for a phenomenal lives-saved to life-lost ratio of 121.4.
What it means
Clearly, the IPCC’s “very-high-confidence” conclusion is woefully wrong. Warming is highly beneficial to human health, even without any overt adaptation to it. And when adaptations are made, warming is incredibly beneficial in terms of lengthening human life span.
For more on this important topic, including results from all around the world, see the many items we have archived under the subheadings of Health Effects (Temperature) in our Subject Index.
Reference
Confalonieri, U., Menne, B., Akhtar, R., Ebi, K.L., Hauengue, M., Kovats, R.S., Revich, B. and Woodward, A. 2007. Human health. In: Parry, M.L. et al. (Eds.) Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Lives Saved per Life Lost Due to Global Warming
Reference
Christidis, N., Donaldson, G.C. and Stott, P.A. 2010. Causes for the recent changes in cold- and heat-related mortality in England and Wales. Climatic Change 102: 539-553. Background
The authors write that “the IPCC AR4 states with very high confidence that climate change contributes to the global burden of disease and to increased mortality,” citing the contribution of Confalonieri et al. (2007) to that document.
What was done
In an effort handsomely suited to evaluate this very-high-confidence contention of the IPCC, Christidis et al. extracted the numbers of daily deaths from all causes from death registration data supplied by the UK Office of National Statistics for men and women fifty years of age or older in England and Wales for the period 1976-2005, which they divided by daily estimates of population “obtained by fitting a fifth order polynomial to mid-year population estimates, to give mortality as deaths per million people,” after which they compared the death results with surface air temperature data that showed a warming trend during the same three-decade period of 0.47°C per decade. In addition, they employed a technique called optimal detection, which they describe as “a formal statistical methodology” that can be used to estimate the role played by human adaptation in the temperature-related changes in mortality they observed.
What was learned
As expected, during the hottest portion of the year, warming led to increases in death rates, while during the coldest portion of the year it lead to decreases in death rates. More specifically, the three scientists report that if no adaptation had taken place, there would have been 1.6 additional deaths per million people per year due to warming in the hottest part of the year over the period 1976-2005, but there would have been 47 fewer deaths per million people per year due to warming in the coldest part of the year, for a lives-saved to life-lost ratio of 29.4, which represents a huge net benefit of the warming experienced in England and Wales over the three-decade period of warming. And when adaptation was included in the analysis, as was the case in the data they analyzed, they found there were only 0.7 death per million people per year due to warming in the hottest part of the year, but a decrease of fully 85 deaths per million people per year due to warming in the coldest part of the year, for a phenomenal lives-saved to life-lost ratio of 121.4.
What it means
Clearly, the IPCC’s “very-high-confidence” conclusion is woefully wrong. Warming is highly beneficial to human health, even without any overt adaptation to it. And when adaptations are made, warming is incredibly beneficial in terms of lengthening human life span.
For more on this important topic, including results from all around the world, see the many items we have archived under the subheadings of Health Effects (Temperature) in our Subject Index.
Reference
Confalonieri, U., Menne, B., Akhtar, R., Ebi, K.L., Hauengue, M., Kovats, R.S., Revich, B. and Woodward, A. 2007. Human health. In: Parry, M.L. et al. (Eds.) Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Lives Saved per Life Lost Due to Global Warming
Reference
Christidis, N., Donaldson, G.C. and Stott, P.A. 2010. Causes for the recent changes in cold- and heat-related mortality in England and Wales. Climatic Change 102: 539-553. Background
The authors write that “the IPCC AR4 states with very high confidence that climate change contributes to the global burden of disease and to increased mortality,” citing the contribution of Confalonieri et al. (2007) to that document.
What was done
In an effort handsomely suited to evaluate this very-high-confidence contention of the IPCC, Christidis et al. extracted the numbers of daily deaths from all causes from death registration data supplied by the UK Office of National Statistics for men and women fifty years of age or older in England and Wales for the period 1976-2005, which they divided by daily estimates of population “obtained by fitting a fifth order polynomial to mid-year population estimates, to give mortality as deaths per million people,” after which they compared the death results with surface air temperature data that showed a warming trend during the same three-decade period of 0.47°C per decade. In addition, they employed a technique called optimal detection, which they describe as “a formal statistical methodology” that can be used to estimate the role played by human adaptation in the temperature-related changes in mortality they observed.
What was learned
As expected, during the hottest portion of the year, warming led to increases in death rates, while during the coldest portion of the year it lead to decreases in death rates. More specifically, the three scientists report that if no adaptation had taken place, there would have been 1.6 additional deaths per million people per year due to warming in the hottest part of the year over the period 1976-2005, but there would have been 47 fewer deaths per million people per year due to warming in the coldest part of the year, for a lives-saved to life-lost ratio of 29.4, which represents a huge net benefit of the warming experienced in England and Wales over the three-decade period of warming. And when adaptation was included in the analysis, as was the case in the data they analyzed, they found there were only 0.7 death per million people per year due to warming in the hottest part of the year, but a decrease of fully 85 deaths per million people per year due to warming in the coldest part of the year, for a phenomenal lives-saved to life-lost ratio of 121.4.
What it means
Clearly, the IPCC’s “very-high-confidence” conclusion is woefully wrong. Warming is highly beneficial to human health, even without any overt adaptation to it. And when adaptations are made, warming is incredibly beneficial in terms of lengthening human life span.
For more on this important topic, including results from all around the world, see the many items we have archived under the subheadings of Health Effects (Temperature) in our Subject Index.
Reference
Confalonieri, U., Menne, B., Akhtar, R., Ebi, K.L., Hauengue, M., Kovats, R.S., Revich, B. and Woodward, A. 2007. Human health. In: Parry, M.L. et al. (Eds.) Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
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Jay says:
November 23, 2010 at 12:21 pm
Dunno, but in statistical terminology, the word “optimal” generally needs to be referenced to something, e.g., optimal w.r.t. minimum mean square error, otherwise it is meaningless. I would expect that the paper/study defines which criteria for optimality is used (MMSE is typical, and often the easiest to compute) though I would not be surprised if any article/press release regarding the paper/study does not.
Mark
Don’t know about the death rates, but I do know that the bikini ratio improves with warmer weather. 😉
Area Man says:
November 23, 2010 at 12:34 pm
Yes and no… most of the warming is in the northern hemisphere. Equatorial regions have seen little, if any, warming that has been attributed to AGW.
No, but given that far fewer people die from extreme highs than from extreme lows, something that has been studied, it is reasonable to conclude warming will result in a net positive.
Mark
It’s better than we thought ….
The following study seems to indicate that the peak in admissions etc. for the over 65s is during cold spells.
Here is the latest figure I find for exess winter deaths in the UK. So this WUWT post doesn’t surprise me one bit.
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=574
Spain doesn’t get off the hook though.
Mortality from cold waves in Castile — La Mancha, Spain – 2010
http://tinyurl.com/3785rnq
i’ts amazing they can come up with anything coherent when they blame everything on global warming
and they could tell all of that, from only 1-2 degrees difference……..
Who would have thought we were all that delicate?
Who would have thought the weather was all that sensitive?
I don’t!
Cherry picked, indeed, because it serves to reason only places that actually get cold will suffer cold-related deaths. Furthermore, places that are not impacted by global warming seem unlikely as good sources of data when attempting to compare changes in death rates due to… global warming. Gee, how hard is this to understand?
And your comment serves only to show how little you understand or are willing to attempt to understand. Shame, really, that people can think as you and still get up in the morning.
Mark
I have just had a look at the UK Office of Statistics figure into the 2009 / 2010 excess winter deaths and it looks suspicious. The brutal winter of 2009/2010 registered 25,400 people. While 2008/2009 exess winter deaths registered around 36,000 exess winter deaths. I thought this past winter was the worst in over 30 years!!!
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=574
Warming good for folk. CO2 good for flora. Polar bear populations increasing. Loads of gas in shale. New mega-oil fields off Africa and South America. We do indeed live in wonderful times.
My thanks to Greenpeace, IPCC and WWF for bringing this to our attention – it may have slipped by unnoticed otherwise.
Is it me or am I surrounded by idiots? How can something so little be so hard to see? Oh, someone mentioned grants and money.
Easy
Ah – that would be why the Sun City retirement communities are located in Arizona rather than Alaska then.
Observation #1:
And Observation #2:
This obviously calls for a scientific study to see if there is a causal relationship between #2 and #1.
dennis crockford says:
November 23, 2010 at 1:22 pm
Please, please say that you weren’t being serious?
Happiness is a warm planet.
This study looked only at the UK. The IPCC looks at the whole world. You people obviously don’t care about the folk who died in the Russian heatwave or the Pakistani floods this year, or the crop failures in both those countries and Africa and a host of other places.
Because the fact that it’s warmer in January in England is the only thing which matters in your little minds. We are OK, stuff the rest of the world, eh. Makes me proud to be British it does.
Ah – so this could explain why I feel good when I’m on holiday in FLORIDA – and not-so-good when I’m battling a freezing winter wind in England…
Could never explain that before….
I know that I am not a scientist and not really equipped to comment, but I am an accountant, economist and energy adviser to the odd Government or two. Empirical evidence from my time running a pensions office in the UK was that we worked overtime when the temperature fell below zero in the daytime because old people died. Empirical evidence from my time collecting energy debts from poor neighbourhoods.: they cannot cope with higher bills in cold weather, and they resent unnecessarily high bills – as now. Finally subjective evidence from my regular November visits to work in the Caribbean (someone has to do it). This year I am cold in the tropics. But I know that is weather and not climate and await the warm English winter. Oh dear – just seen the forecast.
Can I have a research grant please?
Area Man says:
November 23, 2010 at 12:34 pm
I completely agree–a few years back I was down in Death Valley and we stopped at the Ubehebe Crater–an excellent meteorite impact feature, and the temperature on one side was about 112 in the shade! But on the other side where the trail goes, the temperature was 114 degrees (since it was more exposed to the sun), and there were dead people EVERYWHERE! I figure that additional 2 degrees is wot done it!
/sarcoff
Area Man says:
November 23, 2010 at 12:34 pm
To be precise, this latest study looks only at England and Wales. It is not immediately clear over what geography the IPCC was referring to, but it was presumably the entire globe.
One would expect warming to be more benficial (and thus less dangerous) in colder climes like England/Wales vs tropical or equatorial desert climes.
There were more studies like this one in other parts of the world. All show the same trends: warmer means less mortality. See e.g. Keatinge e.a.:
http://www.bmj.com/content/321/7262/670.full
From the study:
Mortality was lowest at 14.3-17.3°C in north Finland but at 22.7-25.7°C in Athens. Overall the 3°C minimum mortality temperature bands were significantly higher in regions with higher than lower mean summer temperatures
The main finding was that cold related extra mortality was a tenfold of the heat related mortality outside the optimum band.
No direct explanation of the southward increase in optimal temperature band was given, maybe a question of adaptation of people in general to different temperature regimes, or genetical adaptation over several generations…
http://www.bmj.com/content/316/7130/514.full
Above: Paper on “cold related deaths” in Russia.
Below: Paper on “Heat Deaths” in AZ, 1992-2009
http://www.azdhs.gov/plan/report/heat/heat09.pdf
A very superficial look at both indicates that presuming winter temperatures go up along with summer temps, the net result will be neutral or positive. I haven’t parsed things exactly, but it appears that if you the more days you raise ABOVE O C, the more days you get NO cold deaths.
Heat deaths become much more related to education, knowledge, etc. The so called “heat wave” of 2003 in Europe was primarily LAUGHABLE to my friends and relatives in PHX. If we take PHX numbers of 40 deaths per year, and a 4 million population, for the 400,000,000 of Europe we’d expect 4,000 deaths (extra) from a prolonged, PHX style “temperature increase”, not 30,000…making us highly suspicious of certain “technological and educational” disadvantages. Along with acculturation and accommodation problems. (I was in London in the summer of 1989, and the dock workers on the Thames were complaining terribly of the problem of working in 84 F “heat”. Which in my area would be considered a MODERATE summer day!)
So warm is good for life and cold is bad, really!
A few more papers and they will find that water freezes to ice if cold enough.
Mark T and Jimmy H (Oh, and you too Anthony):
Let me see,
“the IPCC AR4 states with very high confidence that climate change contributes to the global burden of disease and to increased mortality,”
The review on this website of the UK paper takes the results of the analysis, which was based on the assessment of temperature effects alone, on 1% the world’s human population, living in a concentrated cluster on less than 1% of the global landmass,
and makes the gargantuan, logic-defying leap to the conclusion:
“Clearly, the IPCC’s “very-high-confidence” conclusion is woefully wrong. Warming is highly beneficial to human health, even without any overt adaptation to it. And when adaptations are made, warming is incredibly beneficial in terms of lengthening human life span.”
Climate change impacts, as per Tim W’s blog, are about so much more than than just temperature, and that is why I find the comparison to be such a stretch of the imagination….
Anthony – well chosen graphic to introduce this post. Thank-you for continuing to peel the veneer off the global warming scam.