Deaths caused by heat will rise to average of 7,000 a year in 2050
by The Daily Eye Team February 12 2014, 11:10 am Estimated Reading Time: 0 mins, 34 secsThe number of deaths caused by extreme heat in the UK will more than treble by the middle of the century as a result of climate change and population growth, experts have said. Rising temperatures and an increase in the size of the elderly population will mean that more than 7,000 people will die because of the heat in an average year in the 2050s – compared to just 2,000 today.
However, milder winters will mean that a smaller proportion of people will die from the effects of the cold. The study, published in the British Medical Journal on Tuesday, used historic data on the link between temperature fluctuations and death rates.