What do you believe is the single most important factor driving up the cost of living in Nigeria?

Heat-related deaths and diseases are a major concern in Europe amid increasing extended periods of extreme heat. A recent study proposes a novel way of quantifying and projecting future vulnerability to heat stress in different areas of a city, providing local decision-makers with knowledge for designing more effective adaptation strategies to minimize health impacts of heat stress.

"Climate change-induced heat stress is a major risk factor for human health, especially in cities where more people are exposed to increasingly higher temperatures in the warm season. Cities are usually hotter than surrounding rural areas due to dark and impenetrable surfaces that absorb more heat," explained researcher Iulia Marginean from CICERO Center for International Climate Research, the lead author of the vulnerability study published 6 October in Earth's Future.

The study highlights that vulnerability is an understudied component of climate risk, but a crucial one in climate impact assessments as it plays a key role in determining the magnitude of heat stress impacts on public health.

"Growing concerns of heat-related death and disease in Europe calls for more effective adaptation solutions targeting the groups and individuals most at risk and most affected by the negative impacts of climate change," emphasized Roman Hoffmann, from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), another author behind the study.

In 2023, more than 47,000 people died in Europe as a result of heat, but many more would have died if people had not adapted better to rising temperatures in the past two decades, according to another recent study. Spain is one of the countries with the highest heat-related mortality rates in Europe. This year many Spanish cities, among them its capital city, Madrid, have experienced extended periods of extreme heat.

• Read More