Climate change futures: health, ecological and economic dimensions

EXTREME WEATHER EVENTS
1984 and 1999; Philadelphia, 1991 and 1993;
Chicago, 1995).
HEAT WAVES
CASE 1. THE 2003 EUROPEAN SUMMER
HEAT WAVE AND ANALOG STUDIES
FOR US CITIES
Laurence S. Kalkstein
J. Scott Greene
David M. Mills
Alan D. Perrin
BACKGROUND
In the past two decades, severe heat events affecting
thousands of people have occurred in London,
Calcutta, Melbourne and Central Europe. In the US
there is a well-documented pattern of increased urban
mortality as a result of heat waves in the past several
decades (for example, St. Louis, 1980; New York,
The summer of 2003 in Europe was most likely the
hottest summer since at least AD 1500 (Stott et al.
2004) and the event had human and environmental
impacts far beyond what linear models have projected
to occur during this century. An event of similar magnitude
in the United States could cause thousands of
excess deaths in the inner cities and could precipitate
extensive blackouts.
THE ROLE OF CLIMATE
Heat waves have become more intense and more prolonged
with global warming (Houghton et al. 2001),
and the impacts are exacerbated by the disproportionate
warming at night that accompanies greenhouse
gas-induced warming (Easterling et al. 1997). More
hot summer days, higher maximum temperatures, higher
minimum temperatures and an increase in heat
indices (humidity and heat) have been observed in the
20th century, and models project that these elements
are “very likely” to increase during the 21st century
(Easterling et al. 2000).
53 | EXTREME WEATHER EVENTS
Image: Photodisc
CASE STUDIES