Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe ... - MemoFin.fr

Climate impacts on socio-economic systems and healthPast trendsThe summer of 2003 was an outstanding exampleof increased mortality during periods of extremetemperatures, with an estimated prematuremortality of 70 000 people (Robine et al., 2008).During the summers of 2006, 2007 and 2010temperature records were again broken in differentparts of Europe (Barriopedro et al., 2011).The European Mortality Monitoring Project ( 66 )developed coordinated routine mortality monitoringin Europe but is not yet able to provide real-timedetection and documentation of heat wave effects onmortality.ProjectionsFuture climate change is very likely to increasefrequency, intensity and duration of heat waves,which leads to a marked increase in heat-attributabledeaths under future warming (Baccini et al., 2011).Synergistic effects between high temperature andair pollution (PM 10and ozone) were observedduring hot weather. Long warm and dry periodsin combination with other factors can also leadto forest fires, which can also have severe healthimpacts (Analitis et al., 2012).Projections of heat-related mortality use evidencefrom epidemiological studies combined with futurescenarios of climate, population and acclimatisationwith regionally specific temperature-mortalityrelationships (Baccini et al., 2011). The PESETAproject estimates that heat-related mortality inEurope in the 2080s will increase by between60 000 and 165 000 (without adaptation andphysiological acclimatisation, compared to thepresent baseline). Cold-related mortality is projectedto decrease by between 60 000 and 250 000, whichis about the same magnitude as the increase fromheat-related mortality (Ciscar et al., 2011; Huanget al., 2011). Uncertainty in these estimates needsto be carefully addressed (Watkiss and Hunt,2012). A study covering most of Europe projects aprogressive change in the seasonality of maximummonthly mortality from winter to summer, anincrease in the frequency of warm extremes and thatthe number of uncomfortable days will increase.In the absence of adaptation, these changes wouldlead to a reduction in human lifespan of up to3–4 months in 2070–2100 (Ballester et al., 2011).The ClimateCost project estimates an additional26 000 deaths per year from heat by the 2020s(2011–2040), rising to 127 000 deaths per year bythe 2080s (2071–2100) under a medium to highemission (A1B) scenario, assuming no adaptation.While heat-related mortality is projected to increaseacross Europe, impacts would be highest in southernEurope. Under an E1 scenario, broadly equivalentwith stabilising global mean temperature increase at2 °C above pre-industrial levels, impacts are reducedsignificantly, with an estimated 69 000 deathsper year by the 2080s. With acclimatisation, theestimated number of heat-related deaths declinessubstantially to 13 000 per year in the 2020s,and 40 000 per year in the 2080s under the A1Bscenario; for the E1 scenario it is down to 18 000 peryear in the 2080s (Kovats et al., 2011). Similar toPESETA, these figures are subject to considerableuncertainties.( 66 ) EURO-Momo project (http://www.euromomo.eu/).Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2012191