Distinct atmospheric patterns and associations with acute heat-induced mortality in five regions of England

Abstract

The main objective of this paper was to identify possible acute heat-induced summer mortality in five regions of England namely the Yorkshire and the Humber, West Midlands, North East, North West and South East regions and reveal associations with specific air flows. For this purpose, backward air mass trajectories corresponding to daily episodes of increased temperatures were produced and divided to clusters, in order to define atmospheric pathways associated with warm air mass intrusions. A statistically significant at 95 % confidence interval increase in daily total mortality (DTMORT) was observed during the selected episodes at all five regions and thus, heat-induced mortality was indicated. The calculated raise was more intense in the West Midlands, North West and South East regions, whereas the results in the North East and Yorkshire and the Humber regions were less evident. Large fractions of thermal episodes, elevated average temperature values and higher average DTMORT levels were primarily associated with the short-medium range South West (SW) and/or East-South East (E-SE) trajectory clusters, suggesting relations among heat-induced mortality and specific atmospheric circulations. Short-medium length of SW and E-SE airflows, calculated by an application of Haversine formula along the centroid trajectory of each cluster, implies the arrival of slow moving air masses. Atmospheric stagnation could enhance human thermal stress due to low wind speed.

Exploring Winter Mortality Variability in Five Regions of England Using Back Trajectory Analysis

“…Rather what is of interest is, first, the identification of the range of airmass trajectory patterns associated with LTE for each study region and, subsequently, whether any of the LTE airmass trajectory patterns have high mortality associated with them. To determine the latter, for each region, one-way analysis of Petrou et al 2015). ANOVA indicates whether there is an overall statistically significant difference in mortality level between the airmass back trajectory categories, while the HSD test reveals which of the individual trajectories contribute to the overall difference in mortality level.…”

Weather patterns and all-cause mortality in England, UK

“…linked the easterly weather type to low winter temperatures and to a significant increase in mortality. During summer,Petrou et al (2015) established strong connections between East-Southeast flows and heat casualties in the West Midlands and North West regions. Along the same lines,Pope et al (2016) concluded that Easterly and Anticyclonic conditions lead to enhanced levels of ozone concentrations and elevated risk of mortality during the warm period (April to September).…”

Boundaries of air mass trajectory clustering: key points and applications

“…However, including trajectory means is a very common approach. One example is the study by Petrou et al (2015), who analysed the relationship between atmospheric patterns and heat-induced mortality in five regions in England. They found a link between human thermal stress and atmospheric stagnation.…”

“…They found a link between human thermal stress and atmospheric stagnation. Another example is the analysis by Dimitriou and Kassomenos (2015) to investigate air masses linked to episodes of tropospheric ozone in Ioannina and Athens, Greece. The information provided concerning the dispersion of trajectories and their geographical distribution are the main advantages of this kind of representation, with the impossibility of comparing mean trajectories being the major drawback.…”