Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Impacts of temperature and its variability on mortality in New England

Nature Climate Change volume 5, pages 988–991 (2015)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Rapid build-up of greenhouse gases is expected to increase Earth’s mean surface temperature, with unclear effects on temperature variability1,2,3. This makes understanding the direct effects of a changing climate on human health more urgent. However, the effects of prolonged exposures to variable temperatures, which are important for understanding the public health burden, are unclear. Here we demonstrate that long-term survival was significantly associated with both seasonal mean values and standard deviations of temperature among the Medicare population (aged 65+) in New England, and break that down into long-term contrasts between ZIP codes and annual anomalies. A rise in summer mean temperature of 1 °C was associated with a 1.0% higher death rate, whereas an increase in winter mean temperature corresponded to a 0.6% decrease in mortality. Increases in standard deviations of temperature for both summer and winter were harmful. The increased mortality in warmer summers was entirely due to anomalies, whereas it was long-term average differences in the standard deviation of summer temperatures across ZIP codes that drove the increased risk. For future climate scenarios, seasonal mean temperatures may in part account for the public health burden, but the excess public health risk of climate change may also stem from changes of within-season temperature variability.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Changes in mortality due to seasonal mean temperature and temperature variability across New England, 2003–2008.
Figure 2: Modifications of the effect for annual anomalies of different temperature indices by population density, age, sex and race.
Figure 3: Modifications of the effect for spatial variability in different temperature indices by population density, age, sex and race.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. IPCC Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis (eds Stocker, T. et al.) (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2013).

    Google Scholar 

  2. Alexander, L. & Perkins, S. Debate heating up over changes in climate variability. Environ. Res. Lett. 8, 041001 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Huntingford, C., Jones, P. D., Livina, V. N., Lenton, T. M. & Cox, P. M. No increase in global temperature variability despite changing regional patterns. Nature 500, 327–330 (2013).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Schwartz, J., Samet, J. M. & Patz, J. A. Hospital admissions for heart disease: The effects of temperature and humidity. Epidemiology 15, 755–761 (2004).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Goodman, P. G., Dockery, D. W. & Clancy, L. Cause-specific mortality and the extended effects of particulate pollution and temperature exposure. Environ. Health Perspect. 112, 179–185 (2004).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Barnett, A. G. Temperature and cardiovascular deaths in the US elderly: Changes over time. Epidemiology 18, 369–372 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Anderson, B. G. & Bell, M. L. Weather-related mortality: How heat, cold, and heat waves affect mortality in the United States. Epidemiology 20, 205–213 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Yu, W. et al. Daily average temperature and mortality among the elderly: A meta-analysis and systematic review of epidemiological evidence. Int. J. Biometeorol. 56, 569–581 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Braga, A. L., Zanobetti, A. & Schwartz, J. The effect of weather on respiratory and cardiovascular deaths in 12 US cities. Environ. Health Perspect. 110, 859–863 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Guo, Y. et al. A large change in temperature between neighbouring days increases the risk of mortality. PLoS ONE 6, e16511 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Lin, H. et al. Temperature changes between neighboring days and mortality in summer: A distributed lag non-linear time series analysis. PLoS ONE 8, e66403 (2013).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Zanobetti, A., O’Neill, M. S., Gronlund, C. J. & Schwartz, J. D. Summer temperature variability and long-term survival among elderly people with chronic disease. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 109, 6608–6613 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Rehill, N., Armstrong, B. & Wilkinson, P. Clarifying life lost due to cold and heat: A new approach using annual time series. BMJ Open 5, e005640 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Braga, A. L. F., Zanobetti, A. & Schwartz, J. The time course of weather-related deaths. Epidemiology 12, 662–667 (2001).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. McGeehin, M. A. & Mirabelli, M. The potential impacts of climate variability and change on temperature-related morbidity and mortality in the United States. Environ. Health Perspect. 109, 185–189 (2001).

    Google Scholar 

  16. Basu, R. High ambient temperature and mortality: A review of epidemiologic studies from 2001 to 2008. Environ. Health 8, 40–52 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Thomas, D., Stram, D. & Dwyer, J. Exposure measurement error: Influence on exposure-disease relationships and methods of correction. Annu. Rev. Public Health 14, 69–93 (1993).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Kloog, I., Nordio, F., Coull, B. A. & Schwartz, J. Predicting spatiotemporal mean air temperature using MODIS satellite surface temperature measurements across the Northeastern USA. Remote Sens. Environ. 150, 132–139 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Kloog, I., Melly, S. J., Coull, B. A., Nordio, F. & Schwartz, J. D. Using satellite-based spatiotemporal resolved air temperature exposure to study the association between ambient air temperature and birth outcomes in Massachusetts. Environ. Health Perspect. http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1308075 (2015)

  20. Nielsen, B. et al. Human circulatory and thermoregulatory adaptations with heat acclimation and exercise in a hot, dry environment. J. Physiol. 460, 467–485 (1993).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  21. Lippmann, S. J., Fuhrmann, C. M., Waller, A. E. & Richardson, D. B. Ambient temperature and emergency department visits for heat-related illness in North Carolina, 2007–2008. Environ. Res. 124, 35–42 (2013).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Zorita, E. & González-Rouco, F. Disagreement between predictions of the future behavior of the Arctic Oscillation as simulated in two different climate models: Implications for global warming. Geophys. Res. Lett. 27, 1755–1758 (2000).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Riddle, E. E., Butler, A. H., Furtado, J. C., Cohen, J. L. & Kumar, A. CFSv2 ensemble prediction of the wintertime Arctic Oscillation. Clim. Dynam. 41, 1099–1116 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Petoukhov, V. & Semenov, V. A. A link between reduced Barents–Kara sea ice and cold winter extremes over northern continents. J. Geophys. Res. 115 (2010).

  25. Kloog, I., Coull, B. A., Zanobetti, A., Koutrakis, P. & Schwartz, J. D. Acute and chronic effects of particles on hospital admissions in New-England. PLoS ONE 7, e34664 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This study was funded by NIEHS grants R21ES020695 and R21ES024012. This publication was also made possible by USEPA grant (RD-83479801). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the grantee and do not necessarily represent the official views of the USEPA. Further, USEPA does not endorse the purchase of any commercial products or services mentioned in the publication. The authors also thank L. Shen for fruitful discussions.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA

    Liuhua Shi, Antonella Zanobetti & Joel D. Schwartz

  2. Department of Geography and Environmental Development, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, PO Box 653, Israel,

    Itai Kloog

  3. School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA

    Pengfei Liu

  4. Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA

    Joel D. Schwartz

Authors
  1. Liuhua Shi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Itai Kloog
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Antonella Zanobetti
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Pengfei Liu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Joel D. Schwartz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

J.D.S. designed the research and directed its implementation; A.Z. and I.K. prepared the data set; L.S., P.L. and J.D.S. analysed data; L.S., P.L. and J.D.S. wrote the paper; all authors contributed to revision of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Joel D. Schwartz.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Shi, L., Kloog, I., Zanobetti, A. et al. Impacts of temperature and its variability on mortality in New England. Nature Clim Change 5, 988–991 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2704

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2704

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing