Nighttime Temperatures And Population Mortality Rates May Increase Due To Rapid Climate Change

Aug, 2022 - By WMR

According to research, by the end of the century, the death rate might rise globally as a result of unseasonably warm nights brought on by climate change.

The normal good sleep may be disturbed at night by ambient heat. A weakened immune system, increased risk of heart disease, physical ailments, inflammation, and psychological problems are all consequences of getting less sleep. The average hot night event intensity will nearly quadruple by 2090, according to the results. The burden of sickness is growing throughout 28 east Asian cities as a result of extreme heat that interferes with regular sleeping habits.

This is the first study to calculate the effect of warmer nights on the probability of mortality due to climate change. The results demonstrate that the burden of death may be much larger than that predicted by the average daily temperature increase, indicating that even with the Paris Climate Agreement's limitations, warming from climate change may still have a negative impact. The research was carried out by Yuqiang Zhang, Ph.D., a climate scientist in the Gillings School's Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering. However, the researchers who conducted this study ,discovered that hot night overabundance situations are predicted to happen more frequently than changes in the estimated average temperature. Between 1980 and 2015, the researchers calculated the amount of deaths brought on by excessive heat in 28 cities in China, South Korea, and Japan.

It emphasises the need for governments and local officials to take into account the additional health effects of the disproportional intraday temperature swings when estimating the disease burden caused by suboptimal temperature.

When constructing the future heatwave warning system, it is important to include nighttime heat, particularly for those populations and low-income areas that may not be capable of paying for the added cost of air conditioning. Researchers should create effective adaptation strategies to help individuals cope with the health risks brought on by temperature rises caused by climate change. To lessen the effects of future warming, stronger mitigation measures, such as international cooperation, should be taken into consideration.