Nearly 40,000 Europeans in 2023 died from heat-related issues, down from 2022

Aug. 12 (UPI) -- Researchers say that heat killed more than 47,000 people last year in Europe with this year widely looked at to outpace 2023 as the hottest on record globally, according to a new study.

While still concerning, the 47,690 heat-related deaths in 2023 was nonetheless lower than the 61,672 Europeans in 2022 who reportedly died via heat-related issues, according to analysis by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health in Spain.

This follows a recent World Health Organization report which indicates that Europe is the fastest-warming region on Earth witnessing a large portion of heat-related deaths globally.

When adjusting for population size using epidemiological models from 2015-2019 for 35 countries in 823 regions, the nations with the highest heat-related mortality rates last year were all in southern Europe.

New data shows that Greece was the most vulnerable country with 393 deaths per million citizens followed by Bulgaria at 229 deaths per million and Italy at 209.

Italy ranks first with 12,743 heat-attributable deaths, 8,388 of which were women as a gender disparity appears to show that European women have a 55% higher heat-related death rate compared to men.

Spain is second with 8,352 deaths, and Germany third with 6,376 reported heat-related deaths while Britain saw an estimated 1,851 people die of similar causes.

In Europe, heat stress has been the leading cause of climate-related deaths where over the past 20 years there was a 30% increase in heat-related deaths with that number steadily rising.

An estimated 70,000 European citizens died in 2003 during a heat wave which first pushed officials to take steps to better protect the general population, leaving researchers to complement the effectiveness of those measures two decades later as they contemplated the 2022 heat death toll.

However, researchers also point out that heat-related deaths would have been 80% higher in 2023 without public measures in place to help people adapt to the uptick in global temperatures in the last few decades.

"Our results show how there have been societal adaptation processes to high temperatures during the present century, which have dramatically reduced the heat-related vulnerability and mortality burden of recent summers, especially among the elderly," Elisa Gallo, the study's lead author and an ISGlobal researcher, said.

A study done this year revealed that oceans in 2023 had absorbed record levels of heat. Meanwhile, last year on a global level was the hottest on record, and scientists expect this year will take 2023's place with that ominous distinction as the planet sees more forest fires, droughts and lingering health problems in people as a result.

In early June, the World Meteorological Organization warned there is an 80% chance at least one of the next five years through 2028 will temporarily exceed the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit as established by the Paris Climate Agreement.

Fossil fuels are largely blamed as the root cause of increasing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere as the temperature change of going over the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit "has risen steadily" since the Paris Agreement was signed 2015 , "when such a chance was close to zero," according to the WMO.

"[Adaptation] measures must be combined with mitigation efforts by governments and the general population to avoid reaching tipping points and critical thresholds in temperature projections," Joan Ballester Claramunt, an ISGlobal principal investigator said on this new study.