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On the Number of Deaths Attributed to
the European Heat Wave of 2003

Volume 7, Number 17: 28 April 2004

In the opening sentence of a copyrighted report for the Earth Policy Institute, Larsen (2003) declares that "a record heat wave scorched Europe in August 2003, claiming an estimated 35,000 lives," while stating in the story's subtitle that "far greater losses may lie ahead."  Then, after rehashing some of the particulars of the meteorological event and reciting a bit of heat wave lore, she concludes with the statement that "we can say with confidence that the August heat wave in Europe has broken all records for heat-induced human fatalities," and that "for many of the millions who suffered through these record heat waves and the relatives of the tens of thousands who died, cutting carbon emissions is becoming a pressing personal issue."

In analyzing these claims, we will first consider what typically happens during the other extreme of the year, i.e., the cold of winter.  According to the UK Department of Health, as cited by McGregor et al. (2004), average winter excess mortality in a normal year in the UK alone is identical to what is claimed by Larsen to have required a heat wave of unprecedented proportions over all of Europe to produce.  In fact, there is voluminous evidence, cited in our second Major Report - Enhanced or Impaired? Human Health in a CO2-Enriched Warmer World - that normal cold annually kills far more people than does even unseasonable warmth almost everywhere in the world.  Consequently, if people truly believe that rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations are responsible for global warming, which is predicted to be most strongly manifest in minimum temperatures in winter in the world's coldest climates, they should actually welcome the ongoing upward trend in the concentration of this trace constituent of the atmosphere, rather than have "cutting carbon emissions" become "a pressing personal issue," unless, of course, something other than the truth is driving their agenda.

Changing gears just a bit, climate-alarmist claims about heat waves are seen to be even more outrageous when other elements of the aerial environment are considered.  Stedman (2004), for example, recently analyzed the impact of air pollutants during the 2003 heat wave in the United Kingdom and determined that 21-38% of the total excess deaths claimed to be due to high temperatures were actually the result of elevated concentrations of ozone and PM10 (particulate matter of diameter less than 10µm).  Likewise, Fischer et al. (2004) determined that 33-50% of the deaths attributed to the same heat wave in the Netherlands were caused by high ozone and PM10 concentrations.

Simultaneously, over in the Czech Republic, Kysely and Huth (2004) found that a large portion of the mortality increase that is often attributed to heat waves is actually due to a harvesting effect, "which," in their words, "consists in short-term shifts in mortality and leads to a decline in the number of deaths after hot periods (e.g. Rooney et al., 1998; Braga et al., 2002; Laschewski and Jendritzky, 2002)."  With respect to the mortality displacement effect in the severe European heat waves of 1994, for example, they found that the harvesting effect "can be estimated to account for about 50% of the total number of victims."  In other words, as they put it, "people who would have died in the short term even in the absence of oppressive weather conditions made up about half of the total number of deaths."

When the heat wave harvesting effect described by Kysely and Huth is added to the air pollution effect described by Stedman and Fischer et al., it becomes quite clear that the death toll ascribed to the unseasonably warm temperatures of the 2003 European heat wave was vastly overstated in all of the early climate-alarmist-inspired press reports of the high-temperature episode, and that the true death toll of the unusual weather event literally pales in comparison to the number of deaths that occur with little notice or fanfare throughout each and every normal winter.  Hence, if we are truly concerned about temperature-induced mortality, it is cold weather upon which we should be focusing our attention, not hot weather.

Sherwood, Keith and Craig Idso

References
Braga, A.L.F., Zanobetti, A. and Schwartz, J.  2002.  The effect of weather on respiratory and cardiovascular deaths in 12 U.S. cities.  Environmental Health Perspectives 110: 859-863.

Fischer, P.H., Brunekreef, B. and Lebret, E.  2004.  Air pollution related deaths during the 2003 heat wave in the Netherlands.  Atmospheric Environment 38: 1083-1085.

Kysely, J. and Huth, R.  2004.  Heat-related mortality in the Czech Republic examined through synoptic and 'traditional' approaches.  Climate Research 25: 265-274.

Larsen, J.  2003.  Record heat wave in Europe takes 35,000 lives.  Earth Policy Institute.  Story posted on 9 October 2003 at http://www.earth-policy.org.

Laschewski, G. and Jendritzky, G.  2002.  Effects of the thermal environment on human health: an investigation of 30 years of daily mortality data from SW Germany.  Climate Research 21: 91-103.

McGregor, G.R., Watkin, H.A. and Cox, M.  2004.  Relationships between the seasonality of temperature and ischaemic heart disease mortality: implications for climate based health forecasting.  Climate Research 25: 253-263.

Rooney, C., McMichael, A.J., Kovats, R.S. and Coleman, M.P.  1998.  Excess mortality in England and Wales, and in Greater London, during the 1995 heat wave.  Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 52: 482-486.

Stedman, J.R.  2004.  The predicted number of air pollution related deaths in the UK during the August 2003 heatwave.  Atmospheric Environment 38: 1087-1090.