How weather extremes worsened by climate change are now a major national public health threat–New study
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
I’ve come across plenty of junk climate studies, but this has to be one of the most amateurish:
The study, led by the University of Bristol and published today in Nature Communications, showed how the death toll from temperature hazards overtook the number of deaths from COVID-19 in the South West region of England, when the UK was in the throes of the pandemic.
Lead author Dr Eunice Lo, Research Fellow in Climate Change and Health at the University’s Cabot Institute for the Environment and Elizabeth Blackwell Institute for Health Research, said: “The statistics are stark and illustrate how high the health burden of adverse weather is in the UK in the current climate. I anticipated higher levels of mortality than normal as the country was also experiencing a record heatwave during the peak of the pandemic, but the extent of the increases are surprising and concerning.”
The researchers sprang into action after Sir Patrick Vallance, the UK Government’s former Chief Scientific Adviser, highlighted at COP26 that the climate crisis was a far bigger problem than COVID-19, which would prove more fatal without immediate changes.
Their findings clearly evidence such claims with analysis revealing temperature-related mortality exceeded COVID-19 mortality by 8% in South West England between 2020 and 2022. Temperature-related deaths were also just a quarter less than deaths from COVID-19 in London and not far from a third less (58%) in East Midlands over the same period.
Dr Lo said: “The pandemic rightfully generated huge media attention with the spotlight on daily briefings announcing the latest death toll and public health interventions. Although many, and in some parts of the country more, people were dying from high and low temperatures, this largely went under the radar.
“Ironically the record temperatures, topping 40 degrees, were associated with positive news of people enjoying the sunshine which perhaps reflects a general lack of awareness about how harmful excess heat can be.”
The research highlighted how the coinciding crises presented by COVID-19 coupled with a heatwave or conversely an extreme cold snap put health services under unprecedented pressure, potentially increasing avoidable loss of life.
Findings showed combined excess deaths from extreme temperatures and COVID-19 between 2020 and 2022 were at least twice as high than the previous decade, depending on the region.
Dr Lo said: “The figures strongly demonstrate how negative consequences compound when there are co-occurring major health and weather-related events. For instance, extreme cold during the outbreak of an unexpected disease puts massive strain on hospital bed availability. This research therefore underscores how the UK must be more robustly prepared for such eventualities, which are likely to coincide more often in future with the growing spectre of a changing climate and other global health threats.”
https://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2024/may/hot-and-cold-weather-extreme-deaths-paper.html
And this is the paper:
Abstract
Extreme weather and coronavirus-type pandemics are both leading global health concerns. Until now, no study has quantified the compound health consequences of the co-occurrence of them. We estimate the mortality attributable to extreme heat and cold events, which dominate the UK health burden from weather hazards, in England and Wales in the period 2020-2022, during which the COVID-19 pandemic peaked in terms of mortality. We show that temperature-related mortality exceeded COVID-19 mortality by 8% in South West England. Combined, extreme temperatures and COVID-19 led to 19 (95% confidence interval: 16–22 in North West England) to 24 (95% confidence interval: 20–29 in Wales) excess deaths per 100,000 population during heatwaves, and 80 (95% confidence interval: 75–86 in Yorkshire and the Humber) to 127 (95% confidence interval: 123–132 in East of England) excess deaths per 100,000 population during cold snaps. These numbers are at least ~2 times higher than the previous decade. Society must increase preparedness for compound health crises such as extreme weather coinciding with pandemics.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-48207-2
For a start, the study rehashes the claim that the UK recorded 40.3 °C unprecedented extreme heat4 and a record number of around 3000 heatwave excess deaths.
But as the ONS clearly explained at the time, these deaths were merely brought forward a few days or so; those people were already dying, and were not killed by the heat, as Eunice Lo implies. Over the summer as a whole, the death rate was by a long way the lowest of any season, so there were never any “excess deaths”.
But Eunice’s paper gets worse, a lot worse!
According to the paper:
Figure 1a shows that heat-related mortality (red lines, with red shading indicating its 95% confidence interval) in England and Wales primarily occurred between July and September during the study period of 30 January 2020 to 31 December 2022. A total of 8481 excess deaths (95% confidence interval: 6387–10,493) were attributable to high temperatures.
In months other than July, August and September, cold-related mortality (blue lines, with blue shading indicating its 95% confidence interval) dominated over heat-related mortality. Over the study period, a total of 128,533 excess deaths (95% confidence interval: 107,430–153,642) were attributable to low temperatures, indicating a fifteen-fold larger cold-than-heat mortality burden.
So deaths from cold far exceed any from heat? Well, yes Eunice, I think we already knew that. But it has nothing to do with climate change.
So where pray did this ridiculous headline come from?
Cold weather is not worsened by global warming. Did you really think it did?
On the contrary a warmer climate must mean that the public health threat is reduced. To claim that excess deaths in winter are only now a “major national public health threat” is grossly dishonest.
What is most interesting though is this sentence in the press release:
The researchers sprang into action after Sir Patrick Vallance, the UK Government’s former Chief Scientific Adviser, highlighted at COP26 that the climate crisis was a far bigger problem than COVID-19, which would prove more fatal without immediate changes
So perhaps we should put the real blame on Vallance for this shockingly bad study. He was clearly looking for some data to support his climate crisis scare, no matter how dodgy.
No doubt poor Eunice just did what she was asked to do!
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
‘What the IPCC Actually Says About Extreme Weather’ [July 2023]:
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/what-the-ipcc-actually-says-about
As an author for the global warming activist IPCC you might think she would know this, but then when somebody it willing to pay for your time why would she care?
From her bio
“Prior to joining Bristol University in 2017, I did a PhD in Atmosphere, Oceans and Climate at the University of Reading’s Department of Meteorology. My thesis used climate change detection and attribution techniques to explore how detectable temperature changes associated with injecting sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere would be, if deployed, amid greenhouse gas and other external forcing and internal variability.
My PhD thesis was solely based on hypothetical scenarios in climate models.”
Also: Professor Dann M Mitchell Bristol University
My research focus is concerned with global and regional climate change on scales of 100 years in the past, to 100 years in the future. Specifically, I research how climate change alters the atmospheric circulation, extreme events, and impacts on human health. I look at attribution of past climate trends and extreme events, and projected changes under future greenhouse gas emission scenarios.
And: Prof Antonio Gasparrini – London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
My methodological work focuses on the development of study designs and statistical methods, applied in particular to time series methods, quasi-experimental studies, climate change health impact assessment, environmental spatio-temporal modelling and small-area analysis.
Attribution is where the new money is going. No facts anywhere, just modelling, but presented as real.
“Attribution Studies”: telling our benefactors what they want to hear.
Too hot? Climate change? Too cold? Climate change. Too windy? Climate change. Not windy enough? Climate change.
The complete illogicality of this nonsense is obvious, except to those receiving grants for writing it.
“My PhD thesis was solely based on hypothetical scenarios in climate models”
It shows how academia has degenerated when a PhD can be entirely devoid of real facts. Very sad.
Also sad that there is funding for this sort of bollocks.
What absolute utter twaddle- all it really proves is that Patrick Vallance has joined the gravy train brigade and like the rest of them he is being paid a shedload of money to put his name to this garbage. I suspect that many of the MPs who are likely to lose their seats at the forthcoming election are already lining themselves up for the same gravy train.
God help us if Ed Miliband is part of the next government- they are correct in saying we are living in more dangerous times but, sadly, the biggest danger will be from the decisions he will bring into law over the next few years to achieve Net Zero.
This is pretty desperate stuff. All that study and ‘research’ to conclude warm weather is less harmful than cold. Is Lo so enthralled with the climate scare narrative to be rendered incapable of independent thought? You’d be forgiven for thinking the conclusion was predetermined and the report written to fit. Or is that called following the money?
Wait, were these deaths ‘with’ Climate Change or ‘of’ Climate Change’? Were they just any deaths occurring within 30 days of a climate change diagnosed heatwave or cold spell? To compare like for like with Covid deaths, this is how they would need to be classified.
This will be front page in the guardian and BBC, yet it is just not relevant, it is much hotter all the time in the tropics, are deaths more in Florida than Michigan, due to hear? NO
It seems like a record temperature in one part of the country can miraculously cause excess deaths somewhere else but not where it actually occurs!
“Most of those who died had Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, …”
Despite appearing young, Dr. Lo must have symptoms of D & A. With summer about to appear*, she should have friends checking on her.
[*20 June, 9:50 PM]
Have you seen that the BBC now has a new subject for Klymutt porn which they have been pushing all week. Clear air turbulence. They are all over it like a rash!
ONS data shows that winter excess deaths have nearly halved since the 1950’s whereas deaths in hot periods have only slightly increased. If climate change is affecting these figures (which I doubt) it is in a net positive direction. Excess deaths are certainly influenced by weather (eg very high winter deaths in 1963) but the trends require a longer term look.
Lo certainty?
Not understanding how ‘a heatwave or . . . extreme cold snap’ involve ‘health services.’ I thought you’d just call the coroner. So these 137,000 ‘excess deaths’ occurred AFTER the patients were in ‘health services’ care? The solution to future problems is MORE health services?:
More health services will make your freezing apartment warmer?
Who needs air conditioning when you have more health services?
If the weather is warmer more often than before where you live, the chances of dying when it’s warm are bound to increase. No causation needed for that.
“Findings showed combined excess deaths from extreme temperatures and COVID-19 between 2020 and 2022 were at least twice as high than the previous decade, depending on the region.“
If it is true, isn’t that to be expected when Covid was not present in the previous decade?
Why do so many of these false and pointless articles manage to get into the mainstream news without being peer reviewed before they are accepted?
And how do people like Ms Lo acquire her doctorate if she is only capable of this incredibly low standard of work?
The commies are trying to transmute all issues into ‘health’ issues. They can get away with authoritarian action if it’s about “health.”
In the US, they claim gun ownership is a health issue.
https://www.apha.org/Topics-and-Issues/Climate-Health-and-Equity
What makes this whole report even more ridiculous is that given most extreme temperature deaths are during the winter months, therefore the supposed climate related deaths are due to extreme cold temperatures. One would assume that people have stopped turning up the thermostat in their homes for the deaths being due to extreme cold. The main reason for this to happen is excessively high energy bills which is entirely due to Government climate change taxes and NOT climate change itself. Further proof of this is that energy bills are now four times more expensive than in 2021 and average winter temperatures in the UK have NOT decreased. Leaving just Government climate change policy as the cause of increased deaths. A fact that the UK Government already acknowledges because they now pay back hundreds of pounds of the climate change taxes taken from consumers in the first place and return it to them as ‘Winter Fuel Payments’. The whole thing is simply preposterous.
Must be quite difficult to go on peddling this stuff for money when deep down you know perfectly well that ‘global warming’ has been so slight as not to make any difference to anything.