Summer 2022 was the warmest on record in Europe. It has also been particularly deadly since more than 60,000 deaths are attributable to this heat, according to a study published on Monday that calls for redoubling efforts to cope with the heatwaves to come.
Against a backdrop of global warming, the European continent last year experienced an intense series of heat waves that broke temperature records, causing drought and forest fires.
Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Union, had already reported unusually high excess mortality, but the share of mortality due to heat had not been quantified until now.
This is now done: scientists from the French National Institute of Health (Inserm) and the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) have obtained temperature and mortality data for the period 2015-2022 in 823 regions in 35 European countries, a total population of over 543 million people.
These data were used to estimate epidemiological models to predict temperature-related mortality for each region and week of the summer period.
In total, their analysis, published in the journal Nature Medicine, estimates that between May 30 and September 4, 2022, there were 61,672 heat-related deaths in Europe.
– “Protecting populations” –
During this period there was a particularly intense heat wave, between 18 and 24 July, with a total of 11,637 deaths associated.
“This is a very high number of deaths,” comments AFP researcher Hicham Achebak, co-author of the study. The effects of heat on mortality were known from the 2003 precedent, but with this analysis, there is still much work to be done to protect populations. ‘
The excess mortality in the summer of 2003, during which Europe experienced one of the greatest heat waves in its history, had exceeded the figure of 70,000 deaths in Europe. However, it is difficult to make a comparison, as the methodologies vary between these estimates.
For summer 2022, broken down by country, France recorded the largest increase in temperature compared to the season averages, with +2.43ºC above the 1991-2020 average, followed by Switzerland (+2.30ºC), Italy (+2.28ºC), Hungary (+2.13 ºC) and Spain (+2.11 ºC).
But in absolute terms, the country with the highest number of deaths was Italy, with 18,010 deaths, followed by Spain (11,324) and Germany (8,173). France comes in 4th position, with 4,807 deaths. The agency Santé publique France had estimated 3,000 excess deaths recorded in the summer of 2022 in the country, for only three heat peaks last summer.
– 80 years and over –
The study published in Nature Medicine states that the vast majority of deaths are concentrated in people 80 years of age and older. Another teaching: mortality due to heat was 63% higher among women than men. This greater vulnerability is particularly evident among those over 80, with a mortality rate 27% higher than that of men.
Europe is the continent experiencing the greatest warming, up to 1°C higher than the global average. In this context, the estimates made by the research teams suggest that in the absence of an effective response, the continent will face an average of over 68,000 excess deaths each summer by 2030 and over 94,000 by 2040.
‘These predictions are based on the current level of vulnerability and the temperatures of the future,’ says Achebak. ‘If very effective measures are taken, vulnerability can be reduced,’ he added.
‘This study shows that heat prevention strategies need to be re-evaluated, with particular regard to sex and age,’ said Chloe Brimicombe, climate researcher at the University of Graz in Austria., in a note from the British Science Media Center.
It illustrates “an urgent need to protect the most vulnerable populations,” stressed Raquel Nunes, a professor at the University of Warwick (England).
