Dominic Royé

The proportion of the world’s population living in cities has increased from 37% to 56% over the last 50 years, and it is expected to continue rising further to 60% by 2030 (UN, 2022). As an essential effect of this evolution, urban land cover has expanded rapidly. In the case of Madrid, the increase in urban fraction during the period from 1970 to 2020 has been 20%. It is well known that urbanization reduces the vegetated cover and modifies surfaces properties altering the surface-atmosphere interactions and the different terms of the Surface Energy Balnace (SEB) compared to nearby rural areas. Therefore, analyzing the influence of these changes in urban land cover contributes to understand the potential risks that urban residents might face considering the urban grown and the expected temperatures increases, as this has adverse impacts on human health, livelihoods, and key urban infrastructure.The aim of the …

Background More intense tropical cyclones (TCs) are expected in the future under a warming climate scenario, but little is known about their mortality effect pattern across countries and over decades. We aim to evaluate the TC-specific mortality risks, periods of concern (POC) and characterize the spatiotemporal pattern and exposure-response (ER) relationships on a multicountry scale. Methods and findings Daily all-cause, cardiovascular, and respiratory mortality among the general population were collected from 494 locations in 18 countries or territories during 1980 to 2019. Daily TC exposures were defined when the maximum sustained windspeed associated with a TC was ≥34 knots using a parametric wind field model at a 0.5° × 0.5° resolution. We first estimated the TC-specific mortality risks and POC using an advanced flexible statistical framework of mixed Poisson model, accounting for the population changes, natural variation, seasonal and day of the week effects. Then, a mixed meta-regression model was used to pool the TC-specific mortality risks to estimate the overall and country-specific ER relationships of TC characteristics (windspeed, rainfall, and year) with mortality. Overall, 47.7 million all-cause, 15.5 million cardiovascular, and 4.9 million respiratory deaths and 382 TCs were included in our analyses. An overall average POC of around 20 days was observed for TC-related all-cause and cardiopulmonary mortality, with relatively longer POC for the United States of America, Brazil, and Taiwan (>30 days). The TC-specific relative risks (RR) varied substantially, ranging from 1.04 to 1.42, 1.07 to 1.77, and 1.12 to 1.92 among …

Older adults are generally amongst the most vulnerable to heat and cold. While temperature-related health impacts are projected to increase with global warming, the influence of population aging on these trends remains unclear. Here we show that at 1.5 °C, 2 °C, and 3 °C of global warming, heat-related mortality in 800 locations across 50 countries/areas will increase by 0.5%, 1.0%, and 2.5%, respectively; among which 1 in 5 to 1 in 4 heat-related deaths can be attributed to population aging. Despite a projected decrease in cold-related mortality due to progressive warming alone, population aging will mostly counteract this trend, leading to a net increase in cold-related mortality by 0.1%–0.4% at 1.5–3 °C global warming. Our findings indicate that population aging constitutes a crucial driver for future heat- and cold-related deaths, with increasing mortality burden for both heat and cold due to the aging …

BackgroundClimate change can directly impact temperature-related excess deaths and might subsequently change the seasonal variation in mortality. In this study, we aimed to provide a systematic and comprehensive assessment of potential future changes in the seasonal variation, or seasonality, of mortality across different climate zones.MethodsIn this modelling study, we collected daily time series of mean temperature and mortality (all causes or non-external causes only) via the Multi-Country Multi-City Collaborative (MCC) Research Network. These data were collected during overlapping periods, spanning from Jan 1, 1969 to Dec 31, 2020. We projected daily mortality from Jan 1, 2000 to Dec 31, 2099, under four climate change scenarios corresponding to increasing emissions (Shared Socioeconomic Pathways [SSP] scenarios SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0, and SSP5-8.5). We compared the seasonality in …

Assessing the association between temperature frequency and mortality can provide insights into human adaptation to local ambient temperatures. We collected daily time-series data on mortality and temperature from 757 locations in 43 countries during 1979–2020. We used a two-stage time series design to assess the association between temperature frequency and all-cause mortality. The results were pooled at the national, regional, and global levels. We observed a consistent decrease in the risk of mortality as the normalized frequency of temperature increases across the globe. The average increase in mortality risk comparing the 10th to 100th percentile of normalized frequency was 13.03% (95% CI: 12.17–13.91), with substantial regional differences (33.06% in South Europe to 4.56% in Australia and New Zealand). The highest increase in mortality was observed for high-income countries (13.58%, 95% CI …

BackgroundExposure to cold spells is associated with mortality. However, little is known about the global mortality burden of cold spells.MethodsA three-stage meta-analytical method was used to estimate the global mortality burden associated with cold spells by means of a time series dataset of 1960 locations across 59 countries (or regions). First, we fitted the location-specific, cold spell-related mortality associations using a quasi-Poisson regression with a distributed lag non-linear model with a lag period of up to 21 days. Second, we built a multivariate meta-regression model between location-specific associations and seven predictors. Finally, we predicted the global grid-specific cold spell-related mortality associations during 2000–19 using the fitted meta-regression model and the yearly grid-specific meta-predictors. We calculated the annual excess deaths, excess death ratio (excess deaths per 1000 deaths …

We assembled the first gridded burned area (BA) database of national wildfire data (ONFIRE), a comprehensive and integrated resource for researchers, non-government organisations, and government agencies analysing wildfires in various regions of the Earth. We extracted and harmonised records from different regions and sources using open and reproducible methods, providing data in a common framework for the whole period available (starting from 1950 in Australia, 1959 in Canada, 1985 in Chile, 1980 in Europe and 1984 in the United States) up to 2021 on a common 1× 1 grid. The data originate from national agencies (often, ground mapping), thus representing the best local expert knowledge. Key opportunities and limits in using this dataset are discussed as well as possible future expansions of this open-source approach should be explored. This dataset complements existing gridded BA data based on remote sensing and offers a valuable opportunity to better understand and assess fire regime changes, and their drivers, in these regions. The ONFIRE database can be freely accessed at https://zenodo. org/record/8289245.

The COVID-19 pandemic and climate change are both urgent global health concerns. However, their impact on human lives has not been compared on the same scale. In this study, we compared mortality due to heat with COVID-19 in 38 cities worldwide, considering different levels of global warming (+ 1 C,+ 1.5 C,+ 2 C, and+ 3 C). Our findings reveal that even at a global warming level of+ 1.0ºC, 6 cities are already at a point where heat-related deaths could equal COVID-19 deaths within 15 years. Regardless of high or low COVID-19 mortality in the cities, the number of years to reach the level of COVID-19 mortality decreases with higher global warming levels. In 18.4% to 47.4% of the cities, heat-related mortality is projected to equal COVID-19 mortality within 15 years, ranging from+ 1.0ºC to+ 3.0ºC of global warming. The vulnerability to climate change varies among regions, with European, Mediterranean, and North American cities experiencing a significant rise in heat-related mortality with higher global warming levels. It is important to note that the given number of years represents the time required to reach COVID-19 mortality. However, unlike the peak and decline of COVID-19, climate change-driven heat-related deaths will persistently worsen unless substantial adaptation measures are taken. This emphasizes the crucial need to integrate climate change into public health discourse and policy.

Air pollution poses a health hazard in all countries. However, complete data on ambient particulate matter (PM) concentrations are not available in all world regions. Reanalysis data is already a valuable source of exposure data in epidemiological studies examining the relationship between temperature and health. Nevertheless, the performance of reanalysis data in assessing the short-term health effects of particulate air pollution remains unclear. We assessed the performance of CAMS reanalysis (EAC4) data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, compared with daily PM concentrations from field monitoring stations, to estimate short-term exposure to PM with an aerodynamic diameter less than 10 μm (PM10) on daily mortality in 33 Spanish provincial capital cities using a two-stage time series regression design. The shape of the PM10 distribution varied substantially between PM …

In the context of global warming, cold waves have generated less interest in the scientific community than heat waves, despite their impacts on public health, transport infrastructures and energy consumption. The present study analyses climate change scenarios with simulations of the EURO-CORDEX project, using the Excess Cold Factor (ECF) index for the Iberian Peninsula and Balearic Islands (IPB). The dimensions of intensity, frequency, duration and spatial extent are evaluated for the near future (2021–2050) with respect to the historical period of reference (1971–2000). The projections show a significant overall decrease in all dimensions. The mean change in maximum cold wave intensity is −50% over most of the IPB as a whole in the near future (2021–2050). The largest changes occur in the interior of the Peninsula, where the decrease is around −100%. The annual mean number of cold wave days …

Meteorological droughts will become the principal factor driving compound hot-dry events and analysis thereof is therefore fundamental with regard to understanding future climate patterns. The average citizen knows little of geometry, but it plays an essential role in the characteristics of the droughts, by means of “fractional lengths”. We analysed the fractality of the meteorological droughts under the most recent climate change scenarios. A temporal fractality measure based upon the Cantor set reveals consensual changes in the behavior of droughts worldwide. Most regions will undergo a slight increase in fractality (up to +10% on average), particularly associated with an acceleration of the hydrological cycle and the Hadley cell expansion, with a shift towards the higher latitudes of the tropical edge in both hemispheres. Geometrical measures were applied to the dry spells (<1mm) simulated by Earth System Models of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6), showing more concentrated or unequal distribution of droughts in mid latitudes. Simultaneously, the polar regions might benefit from more regular precipitation patterns. Other inequality measures, such as the indices of Gini and Monjo, showed similar results. In general terms, the earth’s climate will be more fractal in the rainfall-related patterns, which likely means that the consequences will be more catastrophic for the human population.

En las últimas décadas el turismo ha adquirido una importancia cada vez mayor en la economía española. Con 83,5 millones de turistas en 2019, el 11.7% del PIB nacional proviene del sector turístico. El clima es uno de los principales aspectos a tener en cuenta por las personas para elegir un destino turístico. El índice Holiday Climate Index (HCI) es un indicador bioclimático que tiene en cuenta diferentes variables climáticas (temperatura, precipitación, humedad, viento y nubosidad), con el fin de determinar si las condiciones climáticas son adecuadas para las actividades turísticas de carácter urbano. Utilizando el HCI:Urban, se ha analizado la evolución de los niveles de confortabilidad climática para la Península y Baleares (PB) en verano (junio, julio y agosto) para mediados (2041-2060) y finales de siglo (2081-2100) bajo los escenarios climáticos RCP 4.5 y 8.5. Tomando como referencia el periodo 1986-2005, los resultados indican un aumento considerable del confort climático especialmente a finales de siglo en las comunidades autónomas del norte y noroeste del país, donde los valores, alcanzan la calificación de "excelente" (HCI 80-90). Paralelamente, la progresiva pérdida de confort a consecuencia del cambio climático en comunidades autónomas meridionales como Extremadura, Murcia, Andalucía e Islas Baleares, dará lugar a cambios en la distribución espacio-temporal de los flujos turísticos. Pese a que su formulación es susceptible de mejora, los datos proporcionados por el índice HCI:Urban pueden ser útiles en el desarrollo de instrumentos de planificación urbana, facilitando a las autoridades la toma de decisiones …

BackgroundThe epidemiological evidence on the interaction between heat and ambient air pollution on mortality is still inconsistent.ObjectivesTo investigate the interaction between heat and ambient air pollution on daily mortality in a large dataset of 620 cities from 36 countries.MethodsWe used daily data on all-cause mortality, air temperature, particulate matter ≤ 10 μm (PM10), PM ≤ 2.5 μm (PM2.5), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and ozone (O3) from 620 cities in 36 countries in the period 1995–2020. We restricted the analysis to the six consecutive warmest months in each city. City-specific data were analysed with over-dispersed Poisson regression models, followed by a multilevel random-effects meta-analysis. The joint association between air temperature and air pollutants was modelled with product terms between non-linear functions for air temperature and linear functions for air pollutants.ResultsWe analyzed …

Heat-related mortality has been identified as one of the key climate extremes posing a risk to human health. Current research focuses largely on how heat mortality increases with mean global temperature rise, but it is unclear how much climate change will increase the frequency and severity of extreme summer seasons with high impact on human health. In this probabilistic analysis, we combined empirical heat-mortality relationships for 748 locations from 47 countries with climate model large ensemble data to identify probable past and future highly impactful summer seasons. Across most locations, heat mortality counts of a 1-in-100 year season in the climate of 2000 would be expected once every ten to twenty years in the climate of 2020. These return periods are projected to further shorten under warming levels of 1.5 °C and 2 °C, where heat-mortality extremes of the past climate will eventually become …

Combined heat and humidity is frequently described as the main driver of human heat‐related mortality, more so than dry‐bulb temperature alone. While based on physiological thinking, this assumption has not been robustly supported by epidemiological evidence. By performing the first systematic comparison of eight heat stress metrics (i.e., temperature combined with humidity and other climate variables) with warm‐season mortality, in 604 locations over 39 countries, we find that the optimal metric for modelling mortality varies from country to country. Temperature metrics with no or little humidity modification associates best with mortality in ~40% of the studied countries. Apparent temperature (combined temperature, humidity and wind speed) dominates in another 40% of countries. There is no obvious climate grouping in these results. We recommend, where possible, that researchers use the optimal metric for …

Background Epidemiological evidence on the health risks of sulfur dioxide () is more limited compared with other pollutants, and doubts remain on several aspects, such as the form of the exposure–response relationship, the potential role of copollutants, as well as the actual risk at low concentrations and possible temporal variation in risks. Objectives Our aim was to assess the short-term association between exposure to and daily mortality in a large multilocation data set, using advanced study designs and statistical techniques. Methods The analysis included 43,729,018 deaths that occurred in 399 cities within 23 countries between 1980 and 2018. A two-stage design was applied to assess the association between the daily concentration of and mortality counts, including first-stage time-series regressions and second-stage multilevel random-effect meta-analyses. Secondary analyses assessed the exposure–response shape and the lag structure using spline …

■ BACKGROUNDClimate change is the greatest global health threat facing the world in the 21st century. 1 Current climate conditions and changes projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predict an impact of rising temperatures on human health. 2 One in three current heat-related deaths is already known to be related to human-induced climate change. 3 Worldwide, the past decade has been the warmest, 4 and Europe emerged as a major climatic hotspot. 5 In this context, Spain is already one of the countries most affected by increasing temperatures. 2Exposure to heat poses a major threat to high-risk populations by substantially contributing to increased mortality and morbidity. 6 Heat-related mortality has been a significant concern since the summer of 2003, when Europe experienced a heatwave, leading to an excess of more than 70,000 deaths during the summer months, 7 with …

In July 2022, Spain experienced an excessive heat episode during which many cities broke temperature records. According to the Spanish Meteorological Agency, it has been the warmest month in Spain ever, at least since 1961. 1 The average mean temperature was 2.7 ºC higher than the long-term average. The same heatwave event later affected other parts of Europe. For example, the United Kingdom recorded the hottest day ever, with a maximum temperature of 40.3 ºC in the east of England. Likewise, August has also been very warm in Spain, with a mean temperature of 2 ºC above the historical average for this month. We estimated the mortality attributable to heat using the observed daily mortality by the Spanish daily mortality surveillance system (MoMo) and the nationwide mean temperature averaged from the 52 capital cities by calculating the temperature–mortality association during the summer months …

BackgroundThe global spatiotemporal pattern of mortality risk and burden attributable to tropical cyclones is unclear. We aimed to evaluate the global short-term mortality risk and burden associated with tropical cyclones from 1980 to 2019.MethodsThe wind speed associated with cyclones from 1980 to 2019 was estimated globally through a parametric wind field model at a grid resolution of 0·5° × 0·5°. A total of 341 locations with daily mortality and temperature data from 14 countries that experienced at least one tropical cyclone day (a day with maximum sustained wind speed associated with cyclones ≥17·5 m/s) during the study period were included. A conditional quasi-Poisson regression with distributed lag non-linear model was applied to assess the tropical cyclone–mortality association. A meta-regression model was fitted to evaluate potential contributing factors and estimate grid cell-specific tropical …

Multi-temporal measurements quantifying the changes to the Earth’s surface are critical for understanding many natural, anthropogenic, and social processes. Researchers typically use remotely sensed earth observation data to quantify and characterize such changes in land use and land cover (LULC). However, such data sources are limited in their availability prior to the 1980s. While an observational window of 40 to 50 years is sufficient to study most recent LULC changes, processes such as urbanization, land development, and the evolution of urban, and coupled nature-human systems often operate over longer time periods covering several decades or even centuries. Thus, to quantify and better understand such processes, alternative historical-geospatial data sources are required that extend farther back in time. However, such data are rare and processing is labor-intensive, often involving manual work. To overcome the resulting lack in quantitative knowledge of urban systems and the built environment prior to the 1980s, we leverage cadastral data with rich thematic property attribution, such as building usage and construction year. We scraped, harmonized, and processed over 12,000,000 building footprints including construction years to create a multi-faceted series of gridded surfaces, describing the evolution of human settlements in Spain from 1900 to 2020, at 100 m spatial and 5 years temporal resolution. These surfaces include measures of building density, built-up intensity, and built-up land use. We evaluated our data against a variety of data sources including remotely sensed human settlement data and land cover data, model …