Climate Change in Action
Hot days, hot nights. In perfect Hegelian Dialectic the WHO will be developing a Heat-Wave Warning System in Chicago this month. A 114-page document was released prior to the Warning System has some interesting things embedded within it like physiological responses to heat. It is worth a gander of your time. It does have a Table on Contents so you can easily find your interest area:
http://who.int/globalchange/publications/WMO_WHO_Heat_Health_Guidance_2015.pdfSome searing comments from the just released heatwave publication:
- Heatwave timing appears to have a notable effect on the level of mortality. Heatwaves occurring early in the summer have been shown to be associated with greater impacts on mortality in the same population than later heatwaves of comparable or higher temperatures
Assuming there is a pool of people at elevated risk of dying, high-risk pool, in a population at any given time, a hot episode increases the risk of dying for those individuals, decreasing the pool size.
- The impact of high temperatures later in the summer is sometimes diminished after an early heatwave
Heat is a complex phenomenon resulting from the interaction of solar radiation, atmospheric temperature, atmospheric moisture and wind speed or ventilation.
From the trenches,
Celeste
