With a maximum of 35 degrees Celsius, the first heat wave of the year reached its peak on Thursday. The stress is increased by the very high humidity. The number of warm days, ie days on which at least 30 degrees is measured, has multiplied in Austria in recent decades, sometimes reaching more than 40 days per year.
The heat waves also affect the human body: stress, hospitalizations and heat-related deaths are increasing dramatically. The comfort range of a clothed person at rest is around 23 degrees Celsius. The human body has to work very hard in very high temperatures and especially in prolonged heat.
The cardiovascular system is put under more strain, resulting in headaches, dehydration, irritability, nausea, dizziness, a feeling of exhaustion and weakness to muscle and abdominal cramps, fever and circulatory collapse. The entire population is affected, from babies or small children to adults, but particularly vulnerable groups such as the elderly and/or dependents, children, especially infants and small children, and pregnant women.
More and more people need medical care. “Our evaluations of the long-term time series of hospital admissions due to heat stroke, sunstroke or heat collapse show that in hot summers the incidence of these diagnoses is on average about 27 percent higher than in the other summers,” explains Andrea E. Schmidt . , Head of the Climate and Health Competence Center of Health Austria GmbH.
Higher excess mortality due to heat waves
Extreme heat waves also result in more deaths from cardiorespiratory and other diseases, and excess mortality. “In 2017 and 2018, when there were record heat days and tropical nights, heat-related excess mortality was also significantly higher than in previous or subsequent years,” said Bernhard Benka, head of the AGES Public Health division. In 2017, 375 heat-related deaths were registered, in 2018 there were 550. In the previous year there were 231 heat-related deaths.
The number of warm days has multiplied
For example, in the period from 1961 to 1990 there were between three and twelve warm days in the provincial capitals of Austria, the record was usually 20 warm days per year. In the period from 1991 to 2020 there were already between nine and 23 warm days in the capitals in an average year and the records were usually more than 40 warm days.
Source: Krone
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