Heat Wave Deaths Likely to Go Up in the Coming Decades

A new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has predicted increased deaths rate in the coming decades due to heat waves, resulting out of global climate change.

"Our study looks to quantify the impact of increased heat waves on human mortality. For major a U.S. city like Chicago, the impact will likely be profound and potentially devastating," said Roger Peng, lead author of the study.

"We would expect the impact to be less severe with mitigation efforts including lowering CO2 emissions," he said.

For the analysis, Peng and his colleagues developed three climate change scenarios for 2081 to 2100.

The scenarios were based on estimates from seven global climate change models and from mortality and air pollution data for the city of Chicago from 1987 to 2005.

The researchers calculated that in the future excess mortality attributable to heat waves to range from 166 to 2,217 per year.

The study was published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

Source: ANI