Nicola Stoev
Fueled by the climate crisis and El Niño, 2024 has been a year of global extreme temperatures. Australia suffered a string of heat waves through its summer months and, in February, parts of West Africa reported 50C temperatures that made “time stand still.” From March, heat waves hit Mexico, the southern United States and Central America, then India, southern Europe, Japan, and Saudi Arabia, where 1,300 people died during the Hajj pilgrimage. At the beginning of July, the temperatures in Antarctica were 28C higher than usual on some days in July.
The number of people exposed to extreme heat is growing exponentially due to climate change in all world regions. Heat-related mortality for people over 65 years of age increased by approximately 85% during 2000–2004 and 2017–2021.
From 2000–2019, studies show about 489,000 heat-related deaths occurred each year, with 45% of these in Asia and 36% in Europe. In Europe alone in the summer of 2022, an estimated 61,672 heat-related excess deaths occurred. High-intensity heat wave events can bring high acute mortality; in 2003, 70,000 people in Europe died as a result of the June–August event. In 2010, 56,000 excess deaths occurred during a 44–day heat wave in Russia.
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