Exhaustion

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).

As the climate changes, it is crucial to focus not only on mitigation measures but also on building climate change resilience by developing efficient adaptation strategies. Although population adaptation is a major determinant of future climate-related health burdens, it is not well accounted for in studies that project the health impact of climate change. We propose a methodological framework for temperature-related mortality that incorporates two simultaneous adaptation-sensitivity pathways: the physiological pathway, considering both heat adaptation and cold sensitivity, and the socioeconomic pathway, which is influenced by changes in future adaptive capacities.