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| Titel |
Declining impacts of hot spells on mortality in the Czech Republic: adaptation to climate change? |
| VerfasserIn |
Jan Kysely, Eva Plavcova |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2010
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 12 (2010) |
| Datensatznummer |
250036695
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| Zusammenfassung |
| Extreme temperature events have pronounced negative impacts on ecosystems and society, including human health effects. The study examines temporal changes in mortality associated with spells of large positive temperature anomalies (hot spells) in the population of the Czech Republic (central Europe) during 1986–2006. Declining trends in the mortality impacts are found in summer as well as in transition seasons, in spite of rising temperature trends (warming by 1.4 deg. C in summer over the 21-year period). The finding remains unchanged if possible confounding effects of within-season acclimatization to heat and the mortality displacement effect are taken into account. Recent positive socio-economic development, following the collapse of communism in central and eastern Europe in 1989, and better public awareness of heat-related risks are likely the primary causes of the declining vulnerability. The results suggest that climate change may have relatively little influence on heat-related deaths, since changes in other factors that influence vulnerability of the population are dominant instead of temperature trends. It is essential to better understand the observed non-stationarity of the temperature-mortality relationship and the role of adaptation and its limits, both physiological and technological, and to address associated uncertainties in studies dealing with climate change projections of temperature-related mortality. |
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