The review, published today in The Lancet Planetary Health and led by the University of Bristol, shows how prolonged exposure to extreme hot and cold temperatures not only carries greater risk of death but could also be linked to many other health issues, including reduced physical activity and dementia.

While the negative impact of weather extremes on heart and lung health are widely known, the study unites leading climate scientists, meteorologists, public health doctors, and epidemiologists to give a more comprehensive picture of the far-reaching and interrelated implications.

The assessment highlights how more frequent and lasting weather extremes, such as with heatwaves and flooding, exacerbate mental health problems and the spread of infectious diseases. Long-term heat exposure can disrupt sleep, which is associated with cognitive decline and conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease. Heat can also heighten levels of kidney disease and skin cancer, while cold weather may result in more injuries from falls, poor mental health through isolation, joint pain, and sedentary behaviour, the study observed.

Lead author Dann Mitchell, Professor of Climate Science at the University of Bristol Cabot Institute for the Environment, said: “Chiefly this report shows the potentially very serious mortality and morbidity tolls from long-term exposures to changed weather patterns not currently captured in our climate risk assessments.

“We also do not know enough about how hotter temperatures, or continuous flooding, may interact with many different health outcomes, but we are aware of some strong links which give cause for significant concern.”

Whereas previous studies focus on specific health outcomes, such as heat-mortality, this report provides a holistic assessment based on weather extremes in the UK.

Read the full University of Bristol news item

‘Expert judgement reveals current and emerging UK climate mortality burden’ by D. Mitchell et al. in The Lancet Planetary Health [open access]