The human ecology of climate change - Climate Change: Biological and Human Aspects - page 398

Level1(awareness)Theminimumconstantlevelofheat-healthawarenessamongheat-healthstakehold-
ersandthegeneralpublic.
Level2(alert)TobetriggeredassoonastheUKMeteorologicalOiceforecaststhatthresholdtemperatures
aretobeexceededfor3daysorthattherewillbetwoconsecutivedaysofextremelyhightemperatures
nearthethreshold.
Level3(heatwave)Triggeredassoonasthresholdtemperaturesarereached.
Level 4 (emergency) When a heatwave is so severe that it threatens the integrity of health and social care
systems.
Itistheresponsibilityofthegovernment-fundedhealthandsocialservicestoidentifygroupsandindividu-
als likely to be adversely affected by heatwaves, provide advice and implementing appropriate measures.
At-risk groups include the elderly, babies and the very young, those with mental health problems, those
takingcertain medication, those withcertain chronic conditions such as breathingproblems,those witha
disease/infectioninducedbyhightemperatureandthephysicallyactive,suchasmanualworkersandath-
letes. It is the responsibility of the UK Meteorological Office to provide the health and social services with
3-dayforecastwarnings.
Climate change due to greenhouse warming for most (but not all) places on the planet
will mean an increase in extremely warm summer events (above the mid-20th-century
average). It will also for most (but again, not all) places outside of the tropics mean a
decrease in extremely cold winter events. (See the discussion on extreme winters at
the end of section 6.6.1). The overall mortality of a population throughout the year
may (or may not) increase, but what almost certainly will change will be the pattern
of mortality within the year. There will in all likelihood be an above-average level of
mortality in the summer and a lower level in the winter. Consequently hot countries
are likely to see a net increase in annual mortality but countries with a mild climate
(such as the UK) may see hardly any change in overall annual mortality and instead
a decline in winter mortality in the more frequent years without an extreme winter
and an increase in summer mortality. The winter exception to the above is that in a
warmer world it is expected that the strength of severe storms would increase. Injury
from debris and destruction could potentially increase public awareness, and enable
local resource provision, of what to do in the event of severe storms.
The WHO recognises that global warming comes with health impacts and it has
been working with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the UNEP
(both of whom in turn formed the IPCC; see Chapter 5) since 1999. Its work in this
area has three main strands: capacity building (informing to help nations develop the
necessary services to address climate change-related health impacts), information
exchange and research promotion (WHO, 2001a).
Extreme events are also associated with climatic cycles. There are three or four
principal climatic cycles: two encircling the poles (one each), a cycle related to
northern mid latitudes and the El Ni no Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The North Pole
cycle is the Arctic Oscillation or Northern Annular Mode, while the northern mid-
latitude cycle is known as the Pacific-North American pattern (Kerr, 2004). Of these
cycles, the best studied is the ENSO. The ENSO has a period of 2-7 years and within
these years warm water periodically forms in the eastern Pacific to create an El Ni no