Hothouse Earth

Trends of Heat-Related Deaths in the US, 1999-2023

Via JAMA Network, a research letter: Trends of Heat-Related Deaths in the US, 1999-2023.

The warmest average temperature recorded since 1850 occurred in 2023.1 Recent studies have found exposure to extreme heat to be associated with mortality, with variability by age, sex, and race and ethnicity. Recent research suggests that heat-related mortality risk is increasing globally, but formal analyses of heat-related mortality trends in the US through 2023 are lacking. This study examined trends in heat-related mortality rates in the US population from 1999 to 2023.  

Methods   

We analyzed all deaths from 1999 to 2023 in which the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 10th Revision code was P81 (environmental hyperthermia of newborn), T67 (effects of heat and light), or X30 (exposure to excessive natural heat) as either the underlying cause or as a contributing cause of death, as recorded in the Multiple Cause of Death file. 

Data were accessed through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s WONDER platform, which combines death counts with population estimates produced by the US Census Bureau to calculate mortality rates. 

For each year, we extracted age-adjusted mortality rates (AAMRs) per 100 000 person-years for heat-related deaths. The AAMR accounts for differences due to age structures, allowing direct comparisons across time. 

The approach of analyzing cause-specific mortality rates rather than excess mortality is warranted because the excess mortality methodology is subject to confounding from the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 to 2023. This study used publicly available, deidentified aggregate data; thus, it was not considered human subjects research.  

Joinpoint version 5.2.0 (National Cancer Institute) regression was used to analyze AAMRs to assess trends and determine elbow points where the trend began to shift to a new trajectory. Results of joinpoint analyses are reported as average annual percentage change (AAPC) in rates with 95% CIs. Statistical significance was defined as 2-sided P < .05. Data were visualized with R version 4.2.2 (R Foundation for Statistical Computing).

Results

From 1999 to 2023, 21 518 deaths were recorded as heat-related underlying or contributing cause of death, with an AAMR of 0.26 per 100 000 person-years (95% CI, 0.24-0.27). The number of heat-related deaths increased from 1069 (AAMR = 0.38; 95% CI, 0.36-0.40) in 1999 to 2325 (AAMR = 0.62; 95% CI, 0.60-0.65) in 2023, a 117% increase in the number of heat-related deaths and a 63% increase in the AAMR. The lowest number of heat-related deaths in the study period was 311 in 2004, whereas the highest, 2325, was in 2023.

Results of the joinpoint trend analysis showed that during the entire period, the AAMR increased by 3.6% per year (AAPC = 3.6%; 95% CI, 0.1%-7.2%; P = .04) from 1999 to 2023. The number of heat-related deaths and AAMR showed year-to-year variability, with spikes in 2006 and 2011, before showing steady increases after 2016. Joinpoint results showed a nonsignificant decrease of 1.4% per year from 1999 to 2016 (AAPC = −1.4%; 95% CI, −4.7% to 2.1%; P = .42), followed by a significant increase of 16.8% per year in the AAMR from 2016 to 2023 (AAPC = 16.8%; 95% CI, 6.4%-28.2%; P = .002).

Discussion

This study found that heat-related mortality rates in the US increased between 1999 and 2023, especially during the last 7 years. Although a study using data through 2018 found a downward trend in heat-related mortality in the US, this study is the first to our knowledge to demonstrate a reversal of this trend from 2016 to 2023. These results align with site-specific data analyzed in a global study that suggest increases in heat-related mortality. As temperatures continue to rise because of climate change, the recent increasing trend is likely to continue.

Local authorities in high-risk areas should consider investing in the expansion of access to hydration centers and public cooling centers or other buildings with air conditioning. Study limitations include the potential for misclassification of causes of death, leading to possible underestimation of heat-related mortality rates; potential bias from increasing awareness over time; and lack of data for vulnerable subgroups.

Total organic carbon measurements reveal major gaps in petrochemical emissions reporting

Apparently Alberta's oil and gas industries have been emitting up to 64 times more pollution than we thought. Via Science: Total organic carbon measurements reveal major gaps in petrochemical emissions reporting. The editor's summary and abstract:

Editor’s summary 

Air pollution from gaseous organic compounds generated by petrochemical extraction typically is estimated using measurements of a subset of those species, volatile organic compounds. He et al. showed that this approach can vastly underestimate the true magnitude of the problem. Their aircraft-based measurements of total gas-phase organic carbon concentrations over the Athabasca oil sands region of Alberta, Canada, revealed that emissions from that region alone were much larger than estimates made on the basis of more limited arrays of species by as much as a factor of 64. The underreported species included abundant precursors to secondary air pollution that must be included in organic carbon pollution monitoring and reporting. —H. Jesse Smith 

Abstract   

Anthropogenic organic carbon emissions reporting has been largely limited to subsets of chemically speciated volatile organic compounds. However, new aircraft-based measurements revealed total gas-phase organic carbon emissions that exceed oil sands industry–reported values by 1900% to over 6300%, the bulk of which was due to unaccounted-for intermediate-volatility and semivolatile organic compounds.  

Measured facility-wide emissions represented approximately 1% of extracted petroleum, resulting in total organic carbon emissions equivalent to that from all other sources across Canada combined. These real-world observations demonstrate total organic carbon measurements as a means of detecting unknown or underreported carbon emissions regardless of chemical features.  

Because reporting gaps may include hazardous, reactive, or secondary air pollutants, fully constraining the impact of anthropogenic emissions necessitates routine, comprehensive total organic carbon monitoring as an inherent check on mass closure.

See also this report in The Guardian and this report from CBC News.

Climate scientists agree - 2023 was bad but the worst is yet to come

Via CleanTechnica: Climate Scientists Agree - 2023 Was Bad But The Worst Is Yet To Come. I worry that spring in Canada next year will be like that in South America this year. Excerpt:

Tomorrow is New Year’s Day, the time when people start looking forward to a new year filled with promise and prosperity. But the mood is somber among climate scientists this year, where the consensus is that 2023 marked the end of the prelude to climate change and the beginning of the new reality of an overheated planet. The sense is that people are finally beginning to understand what is in store for them in a hotter world but that the realization has come too late to ward off its effects. The time for concerted action was in 2000, not 2024.  

How Hot Was It?  

Climate scientists are staying up late to check their data but it is inevitable that when the last graph is created and the last column of numbers is tabulated, 2023 will go down as the hottest year on Earth in 120,000 years. The Guardian reports the Japanese meteorological society says temperatures in 2023 were 0.53ºC above the global average between 1991 and 2020. That is far above the previous record set in 2016 when temperatures were 0.35C above that average. Over the longer term, the world is about 1.2C hotter than in pre-industrial times.  

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has calculated there was a “greater than 99% chance” that 2023 would be the hottest year in its 174 year dataset. This followed six record warm months in a row, including the northern hemisphere’s warmest summer and autumn.  

Driven by human caused global heating and El Niño, the heat never let up as the end of the year approached. In November, two days were warmer than 2ºC above the pre-industrial average, according to Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. It too has already confirmed the annual record, as has the World Meteorological Organization. In December, many parts of the world sweltered through the hottest Christmas ever. Monthly temperature records are still being beaten in central Asia, South America, Europe and Australia as 2023 draws to a close.  

Berkeley Earth has predicted that average temperatures in 2023 will almost certainly prove to have been 1.5C higher than pre-industrial levels. Although climate trends are based on data that spans decades rather than annual measurements, many scientists say it is probably only a matter of time before the world overshoots the most ambitious of the Paris agreement targets.  

2023 Was A Year Of Climate Disasters 

This year’s deadliest climate disaster was a flood in Libya that killed more than 11,300 people in the coastal city of Derna. In a single day, Storm Daniel unleashed 200 times as much rain as usually falls on the city in the entire month of September. Human-induced climate change made this up to 50 times more likely, climate scientists say. Forest fires burned a record amount of area in Canada and Europe. A roaring inferno on Maui became the deadliest wildfire in US history. The US broke the annual record of billion dollar disasters by August. There were already 23 of them before Labor Day this year.  

Raul Cordero, a climate professor at the University of Groningen and the University of Santiago, said the effects of this year’s heat were being felt across South America in the form of unprecedented water stress in Uruguay, record breaking fires in Chile, the most severe drought in the Amazon basin in 50 years, prolonged power shortages in Ecuador caused by the lack of hydropower, and increased shipping costs along the Panama canal due to low water levels. He said El Niño was forecast to weaken in the coming year, but above average or record temperatures were likely to persist for at least the next three months.

Abrupt, climate-induced increase in wildfires in British Columbia since the mid-2000s

Via Nature Communications: Abrupt, climate-induced increase in wildfires in British Columbia since the mid-2000s. The abstraact:

In the province of British Columbia, Canada, four of the most severe wildfire seasons of the last century occurred in the past 7 years: 2017, 2018, 2021, and 2023. To investigate trends in wildfire activity and fire-conducive climate, we conducted an analysis of mapped wildfire perimeters and annual climate data for the period of 1919–2021. 

Results show that after a century-long decline, fire activity increased from 2005 onwards, coinciding with a sharp reversal in the wetting trend of the 20th century. Even as precipitation levels remain high, moisture deficits have increased due to rapid warming and increased evaporative demand. Bottom-up factors further influence fire activity, as the legacy of past wildfires, insect outbreaks, and land-use practices continually influence fire regimes. 

The compound effects of climate-induced moisture changes and altered fuels now force British Columbians to confront the harsh reality of more frequent years of intense and prolonged wildfire activity.

Abrupt, climate-induced increase in wildfires in British Columbia since the mid-2000s

Via Nature Communications: Abrupt, climate-induced increase in wildfires in British Columbia since the mid-2000s. The abstraact:

In the province of British Columbia, Canada, four of the most severe wildfire seasons of the last century occurred in the past 7 years: 2017, 2018, 2021, and 2023. To investigate trends in wildfire activity and fire-conducive climate, we conducted an analysis of mapped wildfire perimeters and annual climate data for the period of 1919–2021. 

Results show that after a century-long decline, fire activity increased from 2005 onwards, coinciding with a sharp reversal in the wetting trend of the 20th century. Even as precipitation levels remain high, moisture deficits have increased due to rapid warming and increased evaporative demand. Bottom-up factors further influence fire activity, as the legacy of past wildfires, insect outbreaks, and land-use practices continually influence fire regimes. 

The compound effects of climate-induced moisture changes and altered fuels now force British Columbians to confront the harsh reality of more frequent years of intense and prolonged wildfire activity.

Ocean temperatures, already warmer than usual, face El Niño wild card

Via The Globe and Mail: Ocean temperatures, already warmer than usual, face El Niño wild card. I am already worried about the predicted rise in temperatures here in southwestern BC. Excerpt:

Scientists are monitoring a large marine heat wave that has warmed some parts of the Pacific Ocean 5º C above normal and is approaching the Canadian and U.S. west coasts.  

Andrew Leising, a research oceanographer with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the heat wave formed in the Northeast Pacific in mid-May and grew in size as it advanced toward British Columbia, Washington State and Oregon. It is now roughly four million square kilometres and 200 kilometres away from land.  

Dr. Leising described the event as significant but not extreme, noting there have been marine heat waves of similar size, duration and intensity in recent years. The wild card, he said, is the looming El Niño, the recurring climate phenomenon known for playing havoc with ocean and atmospheric conditions around the Pacific and beyond.  

“The last time we had a large heat wave like we’ve got right now, and had El Niño looming along the equator, that was in 2014, and that led to ‘the blob,’” he said, referencing the prolonged marine heat wave that created huge blooms of harmful algae and shuttered fisheries up and down the coast.  

“So it leaves you to speculate: Will we have in 2024 another whole Pacific Northwest region-spanning ‘blob’ like we did in 2015? It’s not out of the realm of possibility that we get another large heat wave that lingers through the winter.”  

Dr. Leising said marine heat waves of recent years have followed a pattern of building up far offshore in the spring, growing as they approach coastal waters in the summertime, and receding from the coastline by October or November. 

“The best-case scenario will be that the heat wave we have now will back off like it has the last several years, we have a little bit of return to normal during November, December, January, but then it’s followed by the El Niño,” he said, noting that this scenario could still have a cumulative effect on marine animals.  

“The worst-case scenario would be that the El Niño weather patterns that develop on the equator affect the atmosphere in the North Pacific and it reinforces and maintains the heat wave, so that it does not recede from the coast as much as it has in recent years. I think that is less likely, but possible.”  

The U.S. Climate Prediction Center says there is a 90-per-cent chance El Niño will continue through the Northern Hemisphere winter, peaking with moderate to strong intensity between November and January.  

The approaching marine heat wave comes during a summer of extremes. Across Canada, 133,000 square kilometres of land have burned, making 2023 the country’s worst wildfire season. On Tuesday, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said July was the hottest month globally since record-keeping began in 1940. In late July, water temperature near the southern tip of Florida reached 38.4 C – hot-tub temperature.

Meanwhile, Environment Canada is tracking a “very strong atmospheric signal” that is expected to bring air temperatures of more than 10 degrees above seasonal to the West Coast by late weekend and early next week.

South Korea: World Scout Jamboree continues despite U.S., U.K. withdrawals amid heat wave

Via Yonhap: (4th LD) World Scout Jamboree continues despite U.S., U.K. withdrawals amid heat wave. Excerpt:

SEOUL, Aug. 5 (Yonhap) -- Representatives of the participating countries decided to go ahead with the World Scout Jamboree on Saturday despite sweltering temperatures and other challenges that led U.S., British and other Scouts to pull out from the campsite on the country's southwest coast.  

Prime Minister Han Duck-soo announced the decision after a meeting of leaders of national contingents, reiterating Seoul's commitment to providing "sufficient" support to the event, which has been marred by heat-related illnesses, the spread of coronavirus, insect bites and other on-site obstacles since its opening in the Saemangeum reclamation area Wednesday.  

"The representatives held a meeting and decided to continue to proceed with the event without a pause," Han said during a briefing at the jamboree's press center.

In light of the heat wave, the government is encouraging various programs to take place in other regions beyond Saemangeum, Han added.  

The decision to proceed with the event was a relief for South Korean organizers as the moves by U.S., British and Singaporean Scouts to leave the Saemangeum site sparked speculation that other participants could follow suit, potentially leading the event to be halted or cut short.  

Han enumerated a set of steps by the Seoul government to bring the jamboree event back on track.  

They included the mobilization of more than 700 personnel to keep shower and other facilities clean, the provision of 104 additional air-conditioned buses and 64 canopies and the deployment of 60 more medical professionals, including 28 doctors.

Heat-related mortality in Europe during the summer of 2022

Via Nature Medicine: Heat-related mortality in Europe during the summer of 2022. The abstract:

Over 70,000 excess deaths occurred in Europe during the summer of 2003. The resulting societal awareness led to the design and implementation of adaptation strategies to protect at-risk populations. We aimed to quantify heat-related mortality burden during the summer of 2022, the hottest season on record in Europe. 

We analyzed the Eurostat mortality database, which includes 45,184,044 counts of death from 823 contiguous regions in 35 European countries, representing the whole population of over 543 million people. We estimated 61,672 (95% confidence interval (CI) = 37,643–86,807) heat-related deaths in Europe between 30 May and 4 September 2022. 

Italy (18,010 deaths; 95% CI = 13,793–22,225), Spain (11,324; 95% CI = 7,908–14,880) and Germany (8,173; 95% CI = 5,374–11,018) had the highest summer heat-related mortality numbers, while Italy (295 deaths per million, 95% CI = 226–364), Greece (280, 95% CI = 201–355), Spain (237, 95% CI = 166–312) and Portugal (211, 95% CI = 162–255) had the highest heat-related mortality rates. 

Relative to population, we estimated 56% more heat-related deaths in women than men, with higher rates in men aged 0–64 (+41%) and 65–79 (+14%) years, and in women aged 80+ years (+27%). 

Our results call for a reevaluation and strengthening of existing heat surveillance platforms, prevention plans and long-term adaptation strategies.

The Texas heat dome shows an exhausting glimpse of the future

Via The New York Times, an op-ed by Jeff Goodell: The Texas Heat Dome Shows an Exhausting Glimpse of the Future. Excerpt:

In 2019, I happened to be visiting Phoenix on a 115-degree day. I had a meeting one afternoon about 10 blocks from the hotel where I was staying downtown. I gamely thought I’d brave the heat and walk to it. How bad could the heat really be? I grew up in California, not the Arctic. I thought I knew heat. I was wrong. After walking three blocks, I felt dizzy. After seven blocks, my heart was pounding. After 10 blocks, I thought I was a goner.  

That experience led me to spend the next three years researching and reporting a book about the dangers of extreme heat and how rising temperatures are reshaping our world. I talked to doctors about how when the core temperature of our bodies rises too high, the proteins in our cells begin to unravel.  

I sailed to Antarctica to see how changes in ocean temperature accelerate the melting of glaciers, causing seas to rise and flooding coastal cities around the world. I talked to people in the slums of India and in oven-like apartments in Arizona and in stifling hot garrets in Paris. I trapped mosquitoes in Houston and learned about how the spread of dengue fever and malaria is altered by hotter temperatures. I talked to engineers about how heat bends railroad tracks and weakens bridges. 

In short, I thought I had a pretty good idea about the impacts of extreme heat in our world.

And then, in mid-June, a few weeks before publication of my book, a heat dome settled over the entire Southwest as well as Mexico, breaking temperature records and turning asphalt to mush. I had recently moved to Austin, Texas. Yes, Texas is a hot place. But this was different. We’re talking about a heat index — the combination of temperature and humidity — as high as 120 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Events disturbingly similar to what I had reported on in other places several years earlier were playing out in real time around me, like hikers dying of heatstroke and thousands of dead fish washing up on Gulf Coast beaches (hotter water contains less oxygen, making it difficult for fish to breathe). The red-faced desperation on the faces of homeless people living beneath an overpass near me was spookily evocative of the red-faced desperation I’d seen on the faces of people in India and Pakistan.  

You can argue that Texas has done this to itself. The planet is getting hotter because of the burning of fossil fuels. This is a simple truth, as clear as the moon in the night sky. No state has profited more from fossil fuels than Texas. Revenues from oil and gas production have long been central to the Texas economy and are at least partly responsible for the more than $32 billion projected surplus in the state’s 2024-25 budget. And Texas is also responsible for emitting more than 600 million metric tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere each year, more than twice as much as any other state.  

The heat dome made visible the barbarity of the state’s political leadership. More workers die in Texas from high temperatures than anywhere else in the country. Nevertheless, on the very day when it was so hot that I didn’t want to walk outside to check the mail until after dark, Gov. Greg Abbott gave final approval to a law that will eliminate local ordinances requiring water breaks for construction workers. Despite the state’s massive budget surplus, many Texas prisons remain without air-conditioning, turning cells into torture chambers on hot days.

How a week of extreme weather sowed chaos in central China. Again.

Via Sixth Tone: How a Week of Extreme Weather Sowed Chaos in Central China. Again. Excerpt:

HENAN, Central China — Du Yingke runs his fingers mournfully through the wheat in his fields in Zhulou, a village in central China’s Henan province. The crops are a sorry sight: spiky, wilting, and spotted with black mold.  

“Now this can’t be eaten,” says Du, gazing into the distance. “It’s probably worthless even as animal feed. We waited for a year, and in the end gained nothing.”  

Until a few weeks ago, the 61-year-old was anticipating a bumper harvest. But like many farmers in this region, he is now facing crippling losses after being hit by what local media have described as “the worst pre-harvest rain in more than a decade.”

In late May, a sudden deluge struck Henan as the wheat harvest approached. While not as severe as the 2021 floods, which claimed 33 lives and caused widespread destruction, this rainfall proved particularly devastating to local crops.  

Known as “China’s granary,” Henan has 85 million mu (5.6 million hectares) of wheat fields that produce one-quarter of the country’s total output. But the grain is highly vulnerable to pre-harvest rain, which causes it to sprout prematurely, lowering its quality or even rendering it unusable.  

Over the following weeks, Henan launched a frenzied effort to salvage its rapidly deteriorating crops. Farmers harvested through the night, illuminated by overhead drones. Local officials fought to secure access to scarce machinery. Two hundred million yuan ($30 million) of emergency funding was released to help farmers dry their waterlogged grain.  

Yet the impact was still severe. Chinese authorities have yet to publish estimates of the damage to the wheat harvest, but Mysteel — a commodity data provider — said telephone interviews with farmers in southern Henan indicated that over 30% of the grain in that region had sprouted early.  

Some farmers have been wiped out. Du says most of the wheat on his 500 mu farm was completely ruined, and that his losses are likely to exceed 800,000 yuan.  

Moreover, the crisis has exposed how vulnerable Chinese agriculture remains to the effects of climate change. Farmers were left unable to access harvesters and drying equipment during the downpours, as a system built for an era of predictable weather proved brittle when placed under stress.  

Freak weather events are becoming a new normal in this region. This is the second time in three years that summer rain has disrupted Henan’s wheat harvest — Du also lost hundreds of thousands of yuan during the 2021 floods. Experts say more needs to be done to prepare China’s wheat farms for a more unstable future.