Comparative evaluation of human heat stress indices on selected hospital admissions in Sydney, Australia

Goldie, James; Alexander, Lisa V.; Lewis, Sophie C.; Sherwood, Steven C.

doi:10.1111/1753-6405.12692

Cited by 15 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…Future work could also more thoroughly examine the prevalence, patterns, and societal effects of clustered TW extremes. Studies on the cumulative health and economic impacts of temporally compound humid heat would extend previous analyses of noncompound events (e.g., Dunne et al., 2013; Goldie et al., 2017; Mora et al., 2017) and compound dry heat (Baldwin et al., 2019), further illuminating the implications of the clustering we observe.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 62%

Concentrated and Intensifying Humid Heat Extremes in the IPCC AR6 Regions

Speizer

Raymond

Ivanovich

et al. 2022

Geophysical Research Letters

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Extreme heat can have substantial consequences for human health, especially when paired with humidity Di Napoli et al., 2019;Foster et al., 2021). The majority of heat dissipation necessary for human thermoregulation occurs through evaporative cooling via sweating (Gagnon & Crandall, 2018), rendering extreme humid heat more physiologically stressful than extreme temperature alone (Vanos & Grundstein, 2020). Humid heat extremes are rapidly increasing in frequency (Raymond et al., 2020;Rogers et al., 2021), and are projected to continue to intensify in the warming climate (Coffel et al., 2018), significantly increasing exposure to dangerous levels of humid heat.Various indices are used to quantify the combined impact of temperature and humidity. Wet-bulb temperature (TW) is a particularly useful metric, as it establishes a maximum tolerable intensity of humid heat at about 35°C (Sherwood & Huber, 2010). This survivability limit applies to healthy individuals under optimal external conditions (e.g., in full shade, with access to unlimited drinking water) (Raymond et al., 2020;Sherwood & Huber, 2010). Thus, substantial health effects-including mortality-occur at far lower TW values Raymond et al., 2020;Vecellio et al., 2022). Even less extreme magnitudes of humid heat can cause a variety of societal impacts, such as decreased economic productivity associated with limitations on outdoor labor or increased energy demand due to the need for artificial cooling (e.g.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 62%

Concentrated and Intensifying Humid Heat Extremes in the IPCC AR6 Regions

Speizer

Raymond

Ivanovich

et al. 2022

Geophysical Research Letters

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“…Many definitions and indices of heat waves have been used in the literature (e.g. [1,2]). When considering the impact of heat on human health, heat stress (heat transfer between a human body and its environment) needs to be considered.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Robust increase in population exposure to heat stress with increasing global warming

Freychet

Hegerl

Lord

et al. 2022

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Extreme heat, particularly if combined with humidity, poses a severe risk to human health. To estimate future global risk of extreme heat with humidity on health, we calculate indicators of heat stress that have been commonly used; the Heat Index, the Wet-Bulb Globe Temperature and the Wet-Bulb Temperature, from the latest Climate Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) projections. We analyze how and where different levels of heat stress hazards will change, from severe to deadly, and how results are sensitive to the choice of the index used. We evaluate this risk at country-level and use population and GDP growth scenario to estimate the vulnerability of each nation. Consistent with previous studies, we find that South and East Asia, and the Middle-East, are highly exposed to heat stress hazards, and that this exposure increases by 20\% to 60\% with global mean temperature change from 1.5 to 3 degrees Celsius. However, we also find substantial increases in heat health risk for some vulnerable countries with less adaptive capacity, such as West Africa, and Central and South America. For these regions, about 20 to more than 50\% of the population could be exposed to severe heat stress each year on average, independent of the index used. For global warming of 3 degrees, European countries and the USA will also be exposed several times per year to conditions with daily mean heat stress level equal to the maximum heat stress of the 2003 heat wave.

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“…During heat waves, excess deaths and ambulance callouts are often significantly higher for unusually warm minimum temperatures than for maximum temperatures, as health problems occur when people cannot cool down at night (Williams et al 2012). To predict the effects of heat waves on human health, a human thermal stress index is often used (Goldie et al 2017). This is because factors such as temperature, solar radiation, wind, and humidity can often alter the human body thermoregulation and thus how much stress a person can feel (Anderson et al 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Use of Cool Roofs and Vegetation to Mitigate Urban Heat and Improve Human Thermal Stress in Melbourne, Australia

Jacobs

Gallant

Tapper

et al. 2018

Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology

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The ability of cool roofs and vegetation to reduce urban temperatures and improve human thermal stress during heat wave conditions is investigated for the city of Melbourne, Australia. The Weather Research and Forecasting Model coupled to the Princeton Urban Canopy Model is employed to simulate 11 scenarios of cool roof uptake across the city, increased vegetation cover across the city, and a combination of these strategies. Cool roofs reduce urban temperatures during the day, and, if they are installed across enough rooftops, their cooling effect extends to the night. In contrast, increasing vegetation coverage reduces nighttime temperatures but results in minimal cooling during the hottest part of the day. The combination of cool roofs and increased vegetation scenarios creates the largest reduction in temperature throughout the heat wave, although the relationship between the combination scenarios is nonsynergistic. This means that the cooling occurring from the combination of both strategies is either larger or smaller than if the cooling from individual strategies were to be added together. The drier, lower-density western suburbs of Melbourne showed a greater cooling response to increased vegetation without enhancing human thermal stress due to the corresponding increase in humidity. The leafy medium-density eastern suburbs of Melbourne showed a greater cooling response to the installation of cool roofs. These results highlight that the optimal urban cooling strategies can be different across a single urban center.

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Comparative evaluation of human heat stress indices on selected hospital admissions in Sydney, Australia

Cited by 15 publications

References 48 publications

Concentrated and Intensifying Humid Heat Extremes in the IPCC AR6 Regions

Concentrated and Intensifying Humid Heat Extremes in the IPCC AR6 Regions

Robust increase in population exposure to heat stress with increasing global warming

Use of Cool Roofs and Vegetation to Mitigate Urban Heat and Improve Human Thermal Stress in Melbourne, Australia

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