Abstract
A changing climate is increasing the frequency, intensity, duration and spatial extent of heat waves. These changes are associated with increased human mortality during heat extremes. At the other end of the temperature scale, it has been widely speculated that cold-related mortality could decrease in a warmer world. We aim to answer a key question; the extent to which mortality due to temperature extremes in Stockholm, Sweden during 1980–2009 can be attributed to climate change that has occurred since our reference period (1900–1929). Mortality from heat extremes in 1980–2009 was double what would have occurred without climate change. Although temperature shifted towards warmer temperatures in the winter season, cold extremes occurred more frequently, contributing to a small increase of mortality during the winter months. No evidence was found for adaptation over 1980–2009.
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Change history
23 June 2014
In the version of this Article originally published, the stated number of heat extremes during the period 1980-2009 should have read 378. This was the value used when attributing the number of deaths due to extreme heat. This error has now been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the Article.
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Acknowledgements
D.O.Å. would like to acknowledge the Umeå SIMSAM network for a travel grant.
D.O.Å. is a Ph.D. candidate financially supported by a grant from The Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research (FAS:2009-0454) awarded to B.F.
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D.O.Å. and J.R. conceived and designed the study. D.O.Å. collected and analysed the data and wrote the first version of the manuscript. B.F., K.L.E. and J.R. helped interpret data and results and write the manuscript.
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Oudin Åström, D., Forsberg, B., Ebi, K. et al. Attributing mortality from extreme temperatures to climate change in Stockholm, Sweden. Nature Clim Change 3, 1050–1054 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2022
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2022
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