Global Warming Is Unlikely to Cut Annual Winter Death Rates

Earlier this month, a team of researchers published a paper stating that, all things considered, the number of yearly winter deaths in the United Kingdom was to decrease in the years to come, all thanks to global warming and climate change.

A new paper published in the journal Nature Climate Change this February 23, on the other hand, argues that said phenomena will have little – if any impact – on the country's annual winter death rates.

This second report is the brainchild of researchers working with the University of Exeter and the University College London, Eurek Alert tells us.

Its conclusions are based on information collected while analyzing 60 years' worth of data concerning winter death rates in the United Kingdom and the factors influencing them.

According to the the University of Exeter and the University College London scientists who worked on this research project, cold winter days were the chief culprit behind winter deaths between the years 1051 and 1971.

Between the years 1971 and 1991, cold days came to share the responsibility with flu activity, and from 1991 until 2011, they pretty much got pushed off stage.

Thus, during this last time frame, flu activity was the main culprit behind documented variations in winter mortality, the same source reports.

“Both policy makers and health professionals have, for some time, assumed that a potential benefit from climate change will be a reduction in deaths seen over winter. We've shown that this is unlikely to be the case,” Dr. Philip Staddon says.

“We've shown that the number of cold days in a winter no longer explains its number of excess deaths. Instead, the main cause of year to year variation in winter mortality in recent decades has been flu,” he goes on to explain.

In their paper in the journal Nature Climate Change, the specialists argue that, by fostering extreme weather manifestations, climate change and global warming might in fact up winter death rates.

“Climate change appears unlikely to lower winter death rates. Indeed, it may substantially increase them by driving extreme weather events and greater variation in winter temperatures. Action must be taken to prevent this happening,” specialist Hugh Montgomery urges.