In many regions of the world it's getting hotter and hotter – people are suffering, and many are dying as a result of rising temperatures. Scientists have ventured a first estimate. More than a third of all deaths in which heat played a role are attributable to global warming. This is the conclusion reached by a study published in the specialist journal Nature Climate Change (Vicedo-Cabrera et al., 2021).

The period between 1991 and 2018 was examined, with data from 732 locations in 43 countries taken into account. However, data from Africa and South Asia were missing and therefore played no part in the survey. For the remaining regions, the researchers calculated the highest values for Central and South America (in Ecuador or Colombia, for instance, a rate of up to 76 per cent), followed by South-East Asia with a value of between 48 and 61 per cent.

Using models, the researchers designed scenarios that allowed them to show how likely deaths from heat have become in the context of climate change.

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