Valuing the Global Mortality Consequences of Climate Change Accounting for Adaptation Costs and Benefits

Carleton, Tamma; Jina, Amir; Delgado, Michael; Greenstone, Michael; Hsiang, Solomon; Hultgren, Andrew; Kopp, Robert; McCusker, Kelly E.; Nath, Ishan; Rising, James; Rode, Ashwin; Seo, Hee Kwon; Viaene, Arvid; Yuan, Jiacan; Zhang, Alice Tianbo

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3224365

Cited by 34 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…These regions are also expected to be the least economically developed under RCP8.5-SSP3; thus, people there may be unable to take enough social adaptions to minimize the potential impacts of HSWs. For example, while air conditioning is a crucial form of adaptation to extreme heat, it is often inaccessible in lower-income areas (Carleton et al, 2019). Besides, air conditioning will become useless if there is a power failure, and it may decrease humans' natural thermal adaptability (Matthews et al, 2019).…”

Section: Conclusion and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changes in Global and Regional Characteristics of Heat Stress Waves in the 21st Century

Chen

Liu

et al. 2020

Earth's Future

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Wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT), a combined measure of temperature and humidity effects on thermal comfort, is used to define heat stress waves (HSWs). While emerging research has raised concerns on future changes in heat stress, for the first time, this study examines spatiotemporal changes in multiple HSW characteristics (intensity, duration, frequency, and cumulative mean intensity) in the 21st century under three emissions scenarios. It is the sustained nature of HSWs that impose more adverse impacts than extreme heat on a single day. HSWs are expected to be more intense, persistent, frequent, and influential due to anthropogenic influence. Models project the largest increases in multiple HSW characteristics will occur over the tropics and subtropics. The exception is maximum intensity, which displays a relative uniform increase over most global land areas. Analysis of regional population exposure to HSWs under different climate and socioeconomic scenarios emphasizes the importance of aggressive mitigation to minimize the potential impacts of HSWs. We further investigate how different regional HSW characteristics are projected to change relative to increasing global mean surface temperature (GMST). Our results confirm the varying rates and different trajectories at which regional HSWs change, independent of forcing pathway, strongly related to GMST. On both globally aggregated and regional scales, the maximum intensity and GMST are highly linearly associated, with an approximately 1:1 increase. However, the other three HSW characteristics are projected to change at a nonlinear rate per degree of GMST increase in general and display large regional variation in the rates of their changes. Plain Language Summary Besides air temperature, air humidity is another important factor in determining the impact of heat waves on humans. High humidity will reduce the efficiency of evaporative cooling and, when combined with high temperature, could pose a serious threat to human health or even life safety. Heat stress indices, taking into account both temperature and humidity effects, are considered to be better indicators of environmental conditions conducive to heat stress on human health. We here employ a widely used heat stress index, wet bulb globe temperature, to define heat waves, namely, heat stress waves (HSWs). Heat waves can be considered through a number of characteristics, and it is their distinctive characteristics that result in the vast array of adverse impacts. This also applies to HSWs. Our results show that more intense, longer-lasting, frequent, and influential HSWs are anticipated during the 21st century, and anthropogenic warming substantially increases the occurrence of HSWs. Except intensity, tropical regions will generally witness the largest increases in multiple HSW characteristics and the number of people that may be exposed to HSWs. Changes in HSW characteristics are confirmed not to depend on whether a particular warming is reached sooner or later; they are strongly related to global mean sur...

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Section: Conclusion and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changes in Global and Regional Characteristics of Heat Stress Waves in the 21st Century

Chen

Liu

et al. 2020

Earth's Future

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“…Heat stress quantified by this simplified WBGT* therefore should be regarded as a conservative estimate, and one should not expect a clear-cut WBGT threshold for heat-related illness or mortality. The two events characterized by relatively lower WBGT*, in western Europe and Russian Federation, nonetheless caused the most deaths, likely because they occurred in regions where summers are usually cool and residents have taken few measures to adapt to extreme heat [3]. In the case of South Asia, where WBGT* routinely exceeds 30 • C, local adaptation and awareness may have played a role in relatively fewer heat-related deaths during the more severe heatwave, in terms of WBGT*, than the two European ones.…”

Section: Historical Heatwavesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…physical activity, health condition, clothing, water, and salt intake) contributing to heat stress in humans, they are factors over which many individuals have little direct control. While air conditioning is a 5 Present address: Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Amherst, MA, USA crucial form of adaptation to extreme heat, it is often inaccessible in lower income areas [3].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Escalating global exposure to compound heat-humidity extremes with warming

Yuan

Kopp

2020

Environ. Res. Lett.

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130

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Heat stress harms human health, agriculture, the economy, and the environment more broadly. Exposure to heat stress is increasing with rising global temperatures. While most studies assessing future heat stress have focused on surface air temperature, compound extremes of heat and humidity are key drivers of heat stress. Here, we use atmospheric reanalysis data and a large initial-condition ensemble of global climate model simulations to evaluate future changes in daily compound heat-humidity extremes as a function of increasing global-mean surface air temperature (GSAT). The changing frequency of heat-humidity extremes, measured using wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT), is strongly related to GSAT and, conditional upon GSAT, nearly independent of forcing pathway. The historical~1 • C of GSAT increase above preindustrial levels has already increased the population annually exposed to at least one day with WBGT exceeding 33 • C (the reference safety value for humans at rest per the ISO-7243 standard) from 97 million to 275 million. Maintaining the current population distribution, this exposure is projected to increase to 508 million with 1.5 • C of warming, 789 million with 2.0 • C of warming, and 1.22 billion with 3.0 • C of warming (similar to late-century warming projected based on current mitigation policies).

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“…The Climate Impact Lab, which is extending the work of the ACP to develop global empirical estimates, has placed adaptation at its centre. For instance, it has recently conducted an assessment of how the costs and benefits of adaptation could affect global temperature-related mortality from climate change (Carleton et al 2018). The Climate Impact Lab's empirical approach leverages crosssectional variations in the observed relationships between weather exposure and impacts to estimate how changes in income and the experienced climate affect populations' sensitivity, as well as to estimate the costs of adapting to changed climates.…”

Section: Current Treatments Of Adaptation Are Limited and Need Considmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing future climate change impacts in the EU and the USA: insights and lessons from two continental-scale projects*

Cı́scar

Rising

Kopp

et al. 2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Climate change will impact many economic sectors and aspects of natural and human wellbeing. Quantifying these impacts as they vary across regions, sectors, time, and social and climatological scenarios supports detailed planning, policy, and risk management. This article summarises and compares recent climate impact assessments in Europe (the JRC PESETA III project) and the USA (the American Climate Prospectus project). Both implement a multi-sector perspective combining high resolution climate data with sectoral impact and economic models. The assessments differ in their coverage of sectors and scenarios, mix of empirical and process-based methods, handling of uncertainty, and representation of damages. Despite the dissimilarities, projected relative economic impacts are comparable, with human mortality as the dominant impact category. Both studies further show a large spatial heterogeneity of impacts that may amplify pre-existing economic inequality in the EU and US, and that mitigation can considerably reduce economic impacts. The comparison highlights the various decision-points involved in interdisciplinary climate impact modelling and lessons learnt in both projects, on the basis of which we provide recommendations for further research.

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Valuing the Global Mortality Consequences of Climate Change Accounting for Adaptation Costs and Benefits

Cited by 34 publications

References 59 publications

Changes in Global and Regional Characteristics of Heat Stress Waves in the 21st Century

Changes in Global and Regional Characteristics of Heat Stress Waves in the 21st Century

Escalating global exposure to compound heat-humidity extremes with warming

Assessing future climate change impacts in the EU and the USA: insights and lessons from two continental-scale projects*

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