Global drivers of minimum mortality temperatures in cities
- 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 parametricHuman 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.…
Author details: | Linda KrummenauerORCiD, Boris F. PrahlORCiDGND, Luís Fílípe Carvalho da CostaORCiDGND, Anne HolstenORCiDGND, Carsten WaltherGND, Jürgen KroppORCiDGND |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.07.366 |
ISSN: | 0048-9697 |
ISSN: | 1879-1026 |
Pubmed ID: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31422334 |
Title of parent work (English): | The science of the total environment : an international journal for scientific research into the environment and its relationship with man |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Place of publishing: | Amsterdam |
Publication type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Year of first publication: | 2019 |
Publication year: | 2019 |
Release date: | 2020/09/14 |
Tag: | City population; Climate; Minimum mortality temperature; Sigmoid model; Socio-economy; Topography |
Volume: | 695 |
Number of pages: | 8 |
Funding institution: | European CommunityEuropean Community (EC) [308 497 498]; Potsdam Graduate School (PoGS), University of Potsdam, Germany |
Organizational units: | Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Geowissenschaften |
DDC classification: | 5 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik / 55 Geowissenschaften, Geologie / 550 Geowissenschaften |
Peer review: | Referiert |