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Evaluation of the ERA5 reanalysis-based Universal Thermal Climate Index on mortality data in Europe

. 2021 Jul ; 198 () : 111227. [epub] 20210508

Language English Country Netherlands Media print-electronic

Document type Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Grant support
MR/M022625/1 Medical Research Council - United Kingdom
MR/R013349/1 Medical Research Council - United Kingdom

Air temperature has been the most commonly used exposure metric in assessing relationships between thermal stress and mortality. Lack of the high-quality meteorological station data necessary to adequately characterize the thermal environment has been one of the main limitations for the use of more complex thermal indices. Global climate reanalyses may provide an ideal platform to overcome this limitation and define complex heat and cold stress conditions anywhere in the world. In this study, we explored the potential of the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) based on ERA5 - the latest global climate reanalysis from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) - as a health-related tool. Employing a novel ERA5-based thermal comfort dataset ERA5-HEAT, we investigated the relationships between the UTCI and daily mortality data in 21 cities across 9 European countries. We used distributed lag nonlinear models to assess exposure-response relationships between mortality and thermal conditions in individual cities. We then employed meta-regression models to pool the results for each city into four groups according to climate zone. To evaluate the performance of ERA5-based UTCI, we compared its effects on mortality with those for the station-based UTCI data. In order to assess the additional effect of the UTCI, the performance of ERA5-and station-based air temperature (T) was evaluated. Whilst generally similar heat- and cold-effects were observed for the ERA5-and station-based data in most locations, the important role of wind in the UTCI appeared in the results. The largest difference between any two datasets was found in the Southern European group of cities, where the relative risk of mortality at the 1st percentile of daily mean temperature distribution (1.29 and 1.30 according to the ERA5 vs station data, respectively) considerably exceeded the one for the daily mean UTCI (1.19 vs 1.22). These differences were mainly due to the effect of wind in the cold tail of the UTCI distribution. The comparison of exposure-response relationships between ERA5-and station-based data shows that ERA5-based UTCI may be a useful tool for definition of life-threatening thermal conditions in locations where high-quality station data are not available.

Center for Environmental and Respiratory Health Research Oulu University Hospital and University of Oulu Oulu Finland; Biocenter Oulu University of Oulu Oulu Finland

Department of Earth Sciences University of Turin Turin Italy

Department of Epidemiology Lazio Regional Health Service ASL Roma 1 Rome Italy

Department of Geography and Environmental Science University of Reading Reading United Kingdom; Department of Meteorology University of Reading Reading United Kingdom; Department of Earth Sciences Uppsala University Sweden; Centre of Natural Hazards and Disaster Science Uppsala Sweden

Department of Public Health Environments and Society London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine London United Kingdom

Department of Public Health Environments and Society London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine London United Kingdom; Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine University of Bern Bern Switzerland; Oeschger Center for Climate Change Research University of Bern Bern Switzerland

Department of Public Health Environments and Society London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine London United Kingdom; The Centre on Climate Change and Planetary Health London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine London United Kingdom; Centre for Statistical Methodology London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine London United Kingdom

Department of Statistics and Computational Research Universitat de València València Spain

Finnish Meteorological Institute Helsinki Finland; Center for Environmental and Respiratory Health Research Oulu University Hospital and University of Oulu Oulu Finland; Biocenter Oulu University of Oulu Oulu Finland

Forecast Department European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts Reading United Kingdom

Forecast Department European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts Reading United Kingdom; Department of Public Health Environments and Society London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine London United Kingdom; Ф Lab European Space Agency Frascati Italy; The Centre on Climate Change and Planetary Health London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine London United Kingdom

Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences Prague Czech Republic; Faculty of Environmental Sciences Czech University of Life Sciences Prague Czech Republic

Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences Prague Czech Republic; Faculty of Environmental Sciences Czech University of Life Sciences Prague Czech Republic; Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences Brno Czech Republic

Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research Spanish Council for Scientific Research Barcelona Spain; School of Tropical Medicine and Global Health Nagasaki University Nagasaki Japan

Institute of Epidemiology Helmholtz Zentrum München German Research Center for Environmental Health Neuherberg Germany

Institute of Family Medicine and Public Health University of Tartu Tartu Estonia

Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research Potsdam Germany; Department of Physical Chemical and Natural Systems Universidad Pablo de Olavide Sevilla Spain

Santé Publique France Department of Environmental Health French National Public Health Agency Saint Maurice France

School of Agriculture Policy and Development University of Reading Reading United Kingdom; Forecast Department European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts Reading United Kingdom

Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute Basel Switzerland; University of Basel Basel Switzerland

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