“We estimate that 47,690 deaths (…) were due to heat in 2023, a mortality that is in second place for the period 2015-2023, behind the year 2022,” summarizes the text, published in the scientific journal Nature Medicine.
The study, which is prepared annually by groups of the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, concluded last year that the heat was extremely deadly in 2022, causing more than 60,000 deaths in Europe.
The accuracy of these numbers is however not absolute: it is an estimate. For 2023, the researchers estimate that deaths ranged from nearly 30,000 to over 66,000.
In any case, the takeaway is that heat continued to kill thousands of people — mostly older people — in 2023, whose summer was the second hottest on record in Europe.
Heatwaves, the duration and frequency of which are getting worse due to climate change, probably weigh on mortality rates in southern Europe (Italy, Greece…) but also affect countries much less used to heat, such as the Baltic States.
In France, the study attributes about 3,500 deaths to the heat, a figure somewhat lower than the tally released by the French public health service a few months ago.
The research, which was based on data for 35 countries, estimates that the deaths would have been even higher if the authorities had not taken action.
As its authors remind, European countries realized the level of danger when they were hit by the heat wave of 2003. It is estimated that it had killed around 70,000 people in Europe, but exact comparisons with estimates for the current period are difficult for methodological reasons.
The authors see the reduction in mortality as a positive effect of current extreme heat preparedness plans, but point out that these policies are not enough on their own and must be accompanied by more active measures to prevent global warming.
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