Implications for workability and survivability in populations exposed to extreme heat under climate change: a modelling study

Oliver Andrews*, Corinne Le Quéré, Tord Kjellstrom, Bruno Lemke, Andy Haines

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Background: Changes in temperature and humidity due to climate change affect living and working conditions. An understanding of the effects of different global temperature changes on population health is needed to inform the continued implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement and to increase global ambitions for greater cuts in emissions. By use of historical and projected climate conditions, we aimed to investigate the effects of climate change on workability (ie, the ability to work) and survivability (the ability to survive). Methods: In this modelling study, we estimated the changes in populations exposed to excessive heat stress between the recent past (ie, 1986–2005) and 2100. We used climate data from four models to calculate the wet-bulb globe temperature, an established heat exposure index that can be used to assess the effects of temperature, humidity, and other environmental factors on humans. We defined and applied thresholds for risks to workability (where the monthly mean of daily maximum wet-bulb globe temperature exceeds 34°C) and survivability (where the maximum daily wet-bulb globe temperature exceeds 40°C for 3 consecutive days), and we used population projections to quantify changes in risk associated with different changes to the global temperature. Findings: The risks to workability increase substantially with global mean surface temperature in all four climate models, with approximately 1 billion people affected globally after an increase in the global temperature of about 2·5°C above pre-industrial levels. There is greater variability between climate models for exposures above the threshold for risks to survivability than for risks to workability. The number of people who are likely to be exposed to heat stress exceeding the survivability threshold increases with global temperature change, to reach around 20 million people globally after an increase of about 2·5°C, estimated from the median of the models, but with a large model uncertainty. More people are likely to be exposed to heat stress in urban than in rural areas. Population exposure can fluctuate over time and change substantially within one decade. Interpretation: Exposure to excessive heat stress is projected to be widespread in tropical or subtropical low-income and middle-income countries, highlighting the need to build on the Paris Agreement regarding global temperature targets, to protect populations who have contributed little to greenhouse gas emissions. The non-linear dependency of heat exposure risk on temperature highlights the importance of understanding thresholds in coupled human-climate systems. Funding: Wellcome Trust.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)e540-e547
JournalThe Lancet Planetary Health
Volume2
Issue number12
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2018

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We thank all attendees at scoping workshops hosted at the Wellcome Trust and London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (London, UK). We thank Colin Harpham and Clare Enright for programming support. The research presented in this paper used the High Performance Computing Cluster supported by the Research and Specialist Computing Support service at the University of East Anglia (Norwich, UK). For their roles in producing, coordinating, and making available the ISIMIP model data used as a basis for our study, we acknowledge the modelling groups and the ISIMIP cross-sectoral science team. We thank the Integrated Assessment Modeling group at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (Boulder, CO, USA) for providing spatial population scenarios . Support came from Wellcome Trust project, Limits to Habitability under Climate Change (no. 204952/Z/16/Z). OA and CLQ received funding from the UK Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy project, Implications of global warming of 1·5°C and 2°C. TK was supported by the European Commission Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (HEAT-SHIELD; no. 668786) .

Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 license

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