Historical global analysis of occurrences and human casualty of extreme temperature events (ETEs)

Abstract

Extreme temperature events (ETEs) are important climatological natural disasters whose consequences have been largely underappreciated due to current challenges in defining them and measuring their impacts. Taking an exploratory approach, this study examines the historical records of 422 ETE occurrences across 71 countries in the period 1900–2011 from the International Disaster Database (EM-DAT) with more detailed analyses for records from 1971 to 2011. The various limitations associated with ETE data and the EM-DAT database are discussed and followed by analyses for heat and cold events. Globally, after adjusting for bias due to increased reporting, it was found that there may be genuine increases in ETE occurrences. Trends for mortality are much more uncertain, with possibly a higher increase for heat than for cold events if the high death counts of the 2003 and 2010 heat waves are included. If excluded, only mortality for cold seems to have increased over the years. Comparisons with other mortality databases suggest that EM-DAT’s global coverage may not be entirely complete. Furthermore, it may have underestimated numbers of death counts, especially for small-scale heat events and cold events in general. Further analyses by Human Development Index (HDI) categories also suggest two additional and opposing biases: an increased reporting bias for more developed nations and an underreporting bias for less developed nations. Country-level analyses based on both absolute and adjusted data suggest that a handful of countries have been most severely impacted by ETE. These mainly comprise developed nations but also include five medium- and low-HDI countries in Asia.