Temperature-Related Summer Mortality Under Multiple Climate, Population, and Adaptation Scenarios.

Woo-Seop Lee,Ho Kim,Kristie Ebi,Jae Lee

doi:10.3390/ijerph16061026

Abstract

Projections of the magnitude and pattern of possible health risks from climate change should be based on multiple climate and development scenarios to describe the range of uncertainties, to inform effective and efficient policies. For a better understanding of climate change-related risks in seven metropolitan cities of South Korea, we estimated temperature-related summer (June to August) mortality until 2100 using projected changes in climate, population, and adaptation. In addition, we extracted the variations in the mortality estimates associated with uncertainties in climate, population, and adaptation scenarios using 25 climate models, two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP 4.5 and 8.5), three population scenarios (high, medium and low variants), and four adaptation scenarios (absolute threshold shift, slope reduction in the temperature-mortality relationship, a combination of slope reduction and threshold shift, and a sigmoid function based on the historical trend). Compared to the baseline period (1991–2015), temperature-attributable mortality in South Korea during summer in the 2090s is projected to increase 5.1 times for RCP 4.5 and 12.9 times for RCP 8.5 due to climate and population changes. Estimated future mortality varies by up to +44%/−55%, −80%, −60%, and +12%/−11% associated with the choice of climate models, adaptation, climate, and population scenarios, respectively, compared to the mortality estimated for the median of the climate models, no adaptation, RCP 8.5, and medium population variant. Health system choices about adaptation are the most important determinants of future mortality after climate projections. The range of possible future mortality underscores the importance of flexible, iterative risk management.

Highlights

Projections of future temperature-related mortality associated with increasing surface temperatures under the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) have infrequently considered future demographic change and the possible effectiveness of adaptation policies [1,2,3,4,5,6]
We comprehensively assessed and compared variations in future mortality estimates associated with uncertainties in the climate and compared variations in future mortality estimates associated with uncertainties in the climate model, climate, population, and adaptation projections
The most important source of future in temperature-related mortality is associated with variations in projected climate change, followed variation in temperature-related mortality is associated with variations in projected climate change, by the uncertainties in adaptation, while the mortality variation associated with uncertainties in followed by the uncertainties in adaptation, while the mortality variation associated with population change is relatively small

Summary

Introduction

Projections of future temperature-related mortality associated with increasing surface temperatures under the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) have infrequently considered future demographic change and the possible effectiveness of adaptation policies [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Wu et al (2014), Stone et al (2014), Kim et al (2014), and Martinez et al (2016). Projected future temperature-related mortality to be linearly scaled with population change [7,8,9,10]. Lee and Kim (2016) considered population and demographic composition changes, projecting that future temperature-related mortality rapidly increases in South Korea [11]. A few studies have started to consider adaptation in projections of future mortality. Public Health 2019, 16, 1026; doi:10.3390/ijerph16061026 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion