Exhaustion

New gridded climate datasets (GCDs) on spatially resolved modelled weather data have recently been released to explore the impacts of climate change. GCDs have been suggested as potential alternatives to weather station data in epidemiological assessments of the health impacts of temperature and climate change. We found that despite different temperature observations the datasets yield very similar results. In particular, high-resolution population-weighted temperature datasets showed better performance. Thus it can be a good alternative to weather stations, especially in densely populated urban areas with large intracity temperature variability.

Although a number of epidemiological studies have examined the effects of non-optimal temperatures on mortality in Europe, evidence about the mortality risks associated with exposure to hot and cold temperatures in Bulgaria is scarce. This study provides evidence about mortality attributable to non-optimal temperatures in adults aged 65 and over in Sofia, Bulgaria, between 2000 and 2017.

Results show an independent association between increased air conditioning prevalence and lower heat-related mortality risk. Excess deaths due to heat decreased during the study periods from 1.40% to 0.80% in Canada, 3.57% to 1.10% in Japan, 3.54% to 2.78% in Spain, and 1.70% to 0.53% in the USA. However, increased air conditioning explains only part of the observed attenuation, corresponding to 16.7% in Canada, 20.0% in Japan, 14.3% in Spain, and 16.7% in the USA.

Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that air conditioning represents an effective heat adaptation strategy, but suggests that other factors have played an equal or more important role in increasing the resilience of populations.

We have developed an integrated assessment tool that can be used for evaluating the public health costs caused by the concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in ambient air. The model can be used to assess the impacts of various alternative air quality abatement measures, policies and strategies. The model has been applied to evaluate the costs of the domestic emissions that influence the concentrations of PM2.5 in Finland in 2015.

We assess economic costs of heat-induced reductions in worker productivity at global scale under RCP2.6 and RCP8.5. Losses in worker productivity are calculated by using an empirically estimated epidemiological exposure-response function, and the associated economic costs are assessed by using a dynamic multi-region, multi-sector computable general equilibrium model. Autonomous mechanisation of outdoor work in agriculture and construction is implemented in the model. We find that under RCP8.5 by 2100, heat-induced reductions in worker productivity result in an average decline of 1.4% in global gross domestic product (GDP) relative to the reference scenario with no climate change.