@article{HuberKrummenauerPenaOrtizetal.2020,
  author    = {Huber, Veronika and Krummenauer, Linda and Pe{\~n}a-Ortiz, Cristina and Lange, Stefan and Gasparrini, Antonio and Vicedo-Cabrera, Ana Maria and Garcia-Herrera, Ricardo and Frieler, Katja},
  title     = {Temperature-related excess mortality in German cities at 2 °C and higher degrees of global warming},
  series = {Environmental Research},
  volume    = {186},
  journal   = {Environmental Research},
  publisher = {Elsevier},
  address   = {San Diego, California},
  issn      = {0013-9351},
  doi       = {10.1016/j.envres.2020.109447},
  pages     = {1 -- 10},
  year      = {2020},
  abstract  = {Background: Investigating future changes in temperature-related mortality as a function of global mean temperature (GMT) rise allows for the evaluation of policy-relevant climate change targets. So far, only few studies have taken this approach, and, in particular, no such assessments exist for Germany, the most populated country of Europe. Methods: We assess temperature-related mortality in 12 major German cities based on daily time-series of all-cause mortality and daily mean temperatures in the period 1993-2015, using distributed-lag non-linear models in a two-stage design. Resulting risk functions are applied to estimate excess mortality in terms of GMT rise relative to pre-industrial levels, assuming no change in demographics or population vulnerability. Results: In the observational period, cold contributes stronger to temperature-related mortality than heat, with overall attributable fractions of 5.49\% (95\%CI: 3.82-7.19) and 0.81\% (95\%CI: 0.72-0.89), respectively. Future projections indicate that this pattern could be reversed under progressing global warming, with heat-related mortality starting to exceed cold-related mortality at 3 degrees C or higher GMT rise. Across cities, projected net increases in total temperature-related mortality were 0.45\% (95\%CI: -0.02-1.06) at 3 degrees C, 1.53\% (95\%CI: 0.96-2.06) at 4 degrees C, and 2.88\% (95\%CI: 1.60-4.10) at 5 degrees C, compared to today's warming level of 1 degrees C. By contrast, no significant difference was found between projected total temperature-related mortality at 2 degrees C versus 1 degrees C of GMT rise. Conclusions: Our results can inform current adaptation policies aimed at buffering the health risks from increased heat exposure under climate change. They also allow for the evaluation of global mitigation efforts in terms of local health benefits in some of Germany's most populated cities.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{KrummenauerCostaPrahletal.2021,
  author    = {Krummenauer, Linda and Costa, Lu{\´i}s F{\´i}l{\´i}pe Carvalho da and Prahl, Boris F. and Kropp, J{\"u}rgen},
  title     = {Future heat adaptation and exposure among urban populations and why a prospering economy alone won't save us},
  series = {Scientific reports},
  volume    = {11},
  journal   = {Scientific reports},
  number    = {1},
  publisher = {Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature},
  address   = {Berlin},
  issn      = {2045-2322},
  doi       = {10.1038/s41598-021-99757-0},
  pages     = {14},
  year      = {2021},
  abstract  = {When inferring on the magnitude of future heat-related mortality due to climate change, human adaptation to heat should be accounted for. We model long-term changes in minimum mortality temperatures (MMT), a well-established metric denoting the lowest risk of heat-related mortality, as a function of climate change and socio-economic progress across 3820 cities. Depending on the combination of climate trajectories and socio-economic pathways evaluated, by 2100 the risk to human health is expected to decline in 60\% to 80\% of the cities against contemporary conditions. This is caused by an average global increase in MMTs driven by long-term human acclimatisation to future climatic conditions and economic development of countries. While our adaptation model suggests that negative effects on health from global warming can broadly be kept in check, the trade-offs are highly contingent to the scenario path and location-specific. For high-forcing climate scenarios (e.g. RCP8.5) the maintenance of uninterrupted high economic growth by 2100 is a hard requirement to increase MMTs and level-off the negative health effects from additional scenario-driven heat exposure. Choosing a 2 degrees C-compatible climate trajectory alleviates the dependence on fast growth, leaving room for a sustainable economy, and leads to higher reductions of mortality risk.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{KrummenauerPrahlCostaetal.2019,
  author    = {Krummenauer, Linda and Prahl, Boris F. and Costa, Lu{\´i}s F{\´i}l{\´i}pe Carvalho da and Holsten, Anne and Walther, Carsten and Kropp, J{\"u}rgen},
  title     = {Global drivers of minimum mortality temperatures in cities},
  series = {The science of the total environment : an international journal for scientific research into the environment and its relationship with man},
  volume    = {695},
  journal   = {The science of the total environment : an international journal for scientific research into the environment and its relationship with man},
  publisher = {Elsevier},
  address   = {Amsterdam},
  issn      = {0048-9697},
  doi       = {10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.07.366},
  pages     = {8},
  year      = {2019},
  abstract  = {Human mortality shows a pronounced temperature dependence. The minimum mortality temperature (MMT) as a characteristic point of the temperature-mortality relationship is influenced by many factors. As MMT estimates are based on case studies, they are sporadic, limited to data-rich regions, and their drivers have not yet been clearly identified across case studies. This impedes the elaboration of spatially comprehensive impact studies on heat-related mortality and hampers the temporal transfer required to assess climate change impacts. Using 400 MMTs from cities, we systematically establish a generalised model that is able to estimate MMTs (in daily apparent temperature) for cities, based on a set of climatic, topographic and socio-economic drivers. A sigmoid model prevailed against alternative model setups due to having the lowest Akaike Information Criterion (AICc) and the smallest RMSE. We find the long-term climate, the elevation, and the socio-economy to be relevant drivers of our MMT sample within the non-linear parametric regression model. A first model application estimated MMTs for 599 European cities ( >100 000 inhabitants) and reveals a pronounced decrease in MMTs (27.8-16 degrees C) from southern to northern cities. Disruptions of this pattern across regions of similar mean temperatures can be explained by socio-economic standards as noted for central eastern Europe. Our alternative method allows to approximate MMTs independently from the availability of daily mortality records. For the first time, a quantification of climatic and non-climatic MMT drivers has been achieved, which allows to consider changes in socio-economic conditions and climate. This work contributes to the comparability among MMTs beyond location-specific and regional limits and, hence, towards a spatially comprehensive impact assessment for heat-related mortality.},
  language  = {en}
}