A new study suggests that global warming is unlikely to reduce winter deaths as there will be unpredictable weather changes related to greenhouse gas emissions.
Researchers from the University of Exeter and University of London contradicted officials' predictions that global warming will have beneficial effects such as a decrease in the number of people dying or getting sick in some regions because of low temperature, reduction in the number of disease-carrying vectors and changes in food production.
They analyzed data from the past six decades and focused on the excess winter deaths (EWDs) in England and Wales. EWD is the number of people who die during the winter season compared to the number of deaths in other seasons of the year.
After that, they found that from 1951 to 1971, most of the EWDs are directly related to cold winter days, while, on 1971 to 1991, the EWDs are due to cold winter days and influenza. However, from 1991 to 2011, influenza alone was the cause of EWDs.
"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," said lead author Philip Staddon of the University of Exeter to Phys.org.
The researchers explained that the reduction of EWDs related to cold winter days is due to the improvements in housing like better home heating and insulation, greater awareness of the risk of extremely low temperature, and health care.
They believe that this study can be of great help to health care providers and policy makers.
Staddon said, "Efforts to combat winter mortality due to cold spells should not be lessened, and those against flu and flu-like illnesses should also be maintained."
This study was published in the Feb. 23 issue of Nature Climate Change.
