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Unsurprisingly, this seems to be a matter of debate: > In a 2014 interview in the Washington Post of University of Miami climatologist Larry Kalkstein, who has

by tspike 3y ago

Unsurprisingly, this seems to be a matter of debate: > In a 2014 interview in the Washington Post of University of Miami climatologist Larry Kalkstein, who has published numerous research papers on weather-related mortality, weighed in on the matter: “Comparing apples to apples, which would be to evaluate acute or short-term responses to weather, I would always give the nod to heat-related deaths. However, if you are considering the seasonal differences in daily mortality, rather than just the “spikes” that we find with acute deaths, I can see why one can argue that winter (or cold-related) mortality is greater.” https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Which-Kills-More-People-Extreme-Heat-or-Extreme-Cold https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Which-Kills-More-People-Ex... Edit: I see we are citing the same article :)

pdonis 3y ago
Yes, but I also cited another one, which takes the more general approach of estimating excess deaths per year associated with cold vs. heat. That article comes up with a factor of about 10 (4.6 million excess deaths per year due to cold vs. 0.5 million due to heat). Note that this article also discusses other factors, such as seasonal changes in death rates due to diseases--but it, unlike the one you referenced, correctly observes that temperature is a factor in such deaths. The fact that flu season is worst in winter is because temperatures are colder than optimal in winter. So the increased flu death rate in winter should at least partly be counted as an increased death rate due to cold. The excess deaths methodology takes these kinds of things into account.