BACKGROUND Heat stress is a physiological response to extreme environmental heat such as heat waves. Heat stress can result in mortality in dairy cows when extreme heat is both rapidly changing and has a long duration. As a result of climate change, heat waves, which are defined as 3 days of temperatures of 32 °C or above, are an increasingly frequent extreme weather phenomenon in Southern Onta...

BACKGROUND Heat waves have been linked with an increase in mortality, but the associated risk has been only partly characterized. METHODS We examined this association by decomposing the risk for temperature into a "main effect" due to independent effects of daily high temperatures, and an "added" effect due to sustained duration of heat during waves, using data from 108 communities in the Uni...

Heat waves trigger substantial social and environmental impacts and even cause massive civilian casualties in extreme cases. Observations show the areas affected by heat waves have increased over China, with themost extreme heat wave occurring during the past five decades. Here we show that both trends can be attributed to anthropogenic influences. We report that under the moderate Representati...

Most of the great California–Nevada heat waves can be classified into primarily daytime or nighttime events depending on whether atmospheric conditions are dry or humid. A rash of nighttime-accentuated events in the last decade was punctuated by an unusually intense case in July 2006, which was the largest heat wave on record (1948–2006). Generally, there is a positive trend in heat wave activi...

BACKGROUND Few studies have identified specific factors that increase mortality during heat waves. This study investigated socio-demographic characteristics and pre-existing medical conditions as effect modifiers of the risk of dying during heat waves in a cohort of elderly residents in Rome. METHODS A cohort of 651,195 residents aged 65 yrs or older was followed from 2005 to 2007. During sum...

BACKGROUND Heat stroke is a serious heat-related illness, especially among older adults. However, little is known regarding the spatiotemporal variation of heat stroke admissions during heat waves and what factors modify the adverse effects. METHODS We conducted a large-scale national study among 23.5 million Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries per year residing in 1,916 US counties during...

BACKGROUND Heat wave and health warning systems are activated based on forecasts of health-threatening hot weather. OBJECTIVE We estimated heat-mortality associations based on forecast and observed weather data in Detroit, Michigan, and compared the accuracy of forecast products for predicting heat waves. METHODS We derived and compared apparent temperature (AT) and heat wave days (with hea...

Frequency and severity of heat waves is expected to increase as a consequence of climate change with important impacts on human and ecosystems health. However, while many studies explored the projected occurrence of hot extremes on terrestrial systems, few studies dealt with marine systems, so that both the expected change in marine heat waves occurrence and the effects on marine organisms and ...

Recent heat waves have been a matter of serious concern for India because of potential impacts on agriculture, food security, and socioeconomic progress. This study examines the trends and variability in frequency, duration, and intensity of hot episodes during three time periods (1951–2013, 1981–2013 and 1998–2013) by defining heat waves based on the percentile of maximum, minimum, and mean te...

BACKGROUND Climate change is projected to increase the number and intensity of extreme weather events, for example heat waves. Heat waves have adverse health effects, especially for the elderly, since chronic diseases are more frequent in that group than in the population overall. The aim of the study was to investigate mortality during heat waves in an adult population aged 50 years or over, a...