Over 7 lakh yearly deaths in India linked to abnormal temperatures: Lancet study

Source: The Hindu

What is the news?

An international team, led by researchers at Monash University in Australia, found that globally more than five million extra deaths a year can be attributed to non-optimal temperatures.

• The team looked at mortality and temperature data across the world from 2000 to 2019, a period when global temperatures rose by 0.26 degrees Celsius per decade, making it the hottest period since the Pre-Industrial era.
• It is the first study to definitively link non-optimal temperatures to annual increases in mortality.

Key findings of the study

• Deaths related to hot temperatures increased in all regions from 2000 to 2019 and global warming, due to climate change, will make this mortality figure worse in the future.
• Global warming may “slightly reduce the number of temperature-related deaths, largely because of the lessening in cold-related mortality. However in the long-term climate change is expected to increase the mortality burden because heat-related mortality would be continuing to increase

Significance

Understanding the geographic patterns of temperature-related mortality is important for the international collaboration in developing policies and strategies in climate change mitigation and adaptation and health protection