heatwaves, severe and extreme - bushfire crc
TRANSCRIPT
Heatwaves, Severe and Extreme
AFAC/BCRC 2013 Conference, Melbourne Monday 2 September
John Nairn
Weather Services Manager
South Australia
Heatwaves – hidden impacts 2003
2010
2013
2009
56,000
30-70,000
4-500
????? + Russia + Europe + USA
Mortality and Morbidity
• Literature concentrates on +65 due increased co-morbidity
(cardiovascular, renal, mental, ….) and age impairment;
isolation, socio-economic disadvantage, infrastructure,
fuel poverty…. +1000 Australians/year (McMichael 2003)
• What lessons so far:
– Severe heatwaves frequently bring forward anticipated
mortality, but also add morbidity burden
– Extreme heatwaves impact a wider demographic –
particularly the independent ‘young–old’, younger
outside workers and risk-takers.
+80,000 years life lost in Paris, 2003 extreme heatwave.
Churchill Fellowship – key findings
•Public expectations for reduced health impacts (ie. heatwaves);
•Strong partnerships between health authorities, weather agencies and
across government;
•Pursuit of evidenced based health mitigation plans supported by peer
reviewed literature; and
•Ongoing research on heatwave measures that reflect health impacts.
shared data: Syndromic Surveillance Systems (SSS)
common/shared community messages
event awareness
shared data: Nowcasting rapid SSS data (UK)
mortality, morbidity temperature, weather indices
GIS cadastral information
impact
Heat
Cold weather
Flooding
Drought
Wildfires and health impacts
Thunderstorm asthma
Volcanic ash
Marine toxicology
PHE Extreme Events bulletin
Other extreme event publications
Climate change
Disaster Risk Reduction
International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
Living with Environmental Change (LWEC) Health and Wellbeing Task Force
WHO Collaborating Centre for Mass Gatherings (with Extreme Events)
UK Recovery Handbook for Chemical Incidents (UKRHCI)
Environmental and public health toxicology publications and training
22 page report
Southeast Australia
extreme heatwave Jan/Feb 2009
Heat related mortality (green bars) and EHF (red squares, black
line) for the 2009 extreme heatwave in SA. The three-day average
daily temperature is superimposed, plotted against the first day of
the three day period (blue line).
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
<45 46-50 51-55 56-60 61-65 66-70 71-75 76-80 81-85 86-90 91-95
age group
num
ber
of d
eath
s
male
female
Heat-related mortality age
distribution for the 2009 extreme
heatwave in South Australia.
SA Coroner/State Pathologist data (published 2012)
2009 extreme heatwave impacts
Melbourne EHF (red squares, black lines), ambulance heat-
related tasks (green bars), daily temperature (solid blue line) and
Victorian Department of Health warning threshold of 30°C
(dashed blue line).
Vic Health report
Australian Government
Bureau of Meteorology Adelaide severe (length)
heatwave March 2008
Generalized Extreme Value theory
utilizing Peaks over Threshold
Severe threshold
Experimental Severe & Extreme Heatwave threshold
Generalized Pareto distribution function
– suited to fat tail distributions
80:20 rule for rareness or severity of
heatwave intensity. 1 X 2 X 3 X 4 X
Brisbane extreme heatwave
EHF period 21-23 Feb 2004
Severe Heatwave threshold using
1958 to 2009 AWAP data
Feb 2009 extreme heatwave
Peak intensity for Adelaide extreme
heatwave
Feb 2009 extreme heatwave
58 heat attributed deaths in Adelaide
March 2008 severe heatwave
One excess death
January 2013 severe/extreme heatwave
preceding 4 January fires
severe threshold
MetEye – the Bureau’s new
public display system showing
graphical (gridded) observation &
forecast data suited to an
objective heatwave/coldwave
algorithm.
Previous charts constructed
from high quality gridded
climate data
Heatwave Warning service interest?
International case studies
Paris experienced ~15,000 excess deaths in 2003
Peak amplitude of
~ 3 x sev threshold
Chicago 1995 ~ 700 excess deaths, then Chicago 1999 ~ 100 excess deaths
Peak amplitude, ~ 3.5 x sev threshold Peak amplitude briefly ~ 2 x sev threshold
Australian Government
Bureau of Meteorology
John Nairn
08 8366 2723
Thank you…
Partnerships needed across government
Data sharing essential
Targeted research essential
Bureau very interested in new impact services
Useful reports:
PricewaterhouseCoopers report – 2011, policy
CAWCR Technical Report (60) – 2013, science
Churchill Trust Report – 2013, international experience