Exploring the Relationship between Rising Temperatures and the Number of Climate-Related Natural Disasters in China

Abstract

Warming has strongly influenced the quantity and variability of natural disasters around the globe. This study aims to characterize the varying patterns between rising temperatures and climate-related natural disasters in China from 1951 to 2010. We examined the overall trend in the patterns of an 11-year cycle, and climate-related natural disaster responses to periods of rising and dropping temperature. We used Morlet wavelet analysis to determine the length of a temperature cycle period, and the arc elasticity coefficient to assess the number of climate-related natural disasters in response to the changing temperature. We found that: (1) the overall relationship between temperature and the number of climate-related natural disasters was positive; (2) however, on the cycle level, the pattern of climate-related natural disasters was found to be independent of temperature variation; (3) on the rise-drop level, temperature increases were associated with declines in the number of climate-related natural disasters. Moreover, as temperature decreased, the number of climate-related natural disasters increased substantially, such that temperature had a more considerable influence on the quantity of climate-related natural disasters during the temperature-drop period. Findings in this study can help enhance the dissemination of warning and mitigation efforts to combat natural disasters in the changing climate.

Climate change effects on mental health: are there workplace implications?

“…‘Climate change’ referred to any meteorological changes including both gradual changes such as increased temperatures and extreme weather events such as floods and earthquakes. Earthquakes were included as there is increasing evidence that climate change may potentially be indirectly associated with earthquake frequency: for example, it has been suggested that tectonic plate movement may be associated with the melting of glaciers [ 15 , 16 ] and rising soil temperatures [ 16 ]. Citations were imported into EndNote where one author reviewed titles, abstracts and then full texts against the inclusion criteria.…”

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