Exhaustion

Previous health impact assessments of temperature-related mortality in Europe indicated that the mortality burden attributable to cold is much larger than for heat. Questions remain as to whether climate change can result in a net decrease in temperature-related mortality.

Heat stress in cities is projected to increase due to climate change strongly. The high population density in cities and the urban heat island effect will exacerbate the associated health risks. However, impacts are still uncertain, which is among other factors due to the existence of multiple metrics for quantifying ambient heat and the typically rather coarse spatial resolution of climate models. Here we investigate projections of ambient heat for 36 major European cities based on a recently produced ensemble of regional climate model simulations for Europe (EURO-CORDEX) at 0.11° spatial resolution (∼ 12.5 km).

We used a risk matrix approach to develop heat-related hazard, impact, and risk maps.  We used satellite-derived land surface temperatures (MODIS LSTs) to cope with the need for a fine horizontal resolution for the climate index. We have defined the impact index as emergency (paramedic) interventions for daytime and nighttime, from the period June-August 2012-2017 (SMURD – Emergency Situation Inspectorate Bucuresti-Ilfov) and June-August 2018 (Service of Ambulance Bucuresti-Ilfov).

Although a number of epidemiological studies have examined the effects of non-optimal temperatures on mortality in Europe, evidence about the mortality risks associated with exposure to hot and cold temperatures in Bulgaria is scarce. This study provides evidence about mortality attributable to non-optimal temperatures in adults aged 65 and over in Sofia, Bulgaria, between 2000 and 2017.