Heatwaves, Severe and Extreme - Bushfire CRC

Heatwaves, Severe and Extreme

AFAC/BCRC 2013 Conference, Melbourne Monday 2 September

John Nairn

Weather Services Manager

South Australia

j.nairn@bom.gov.au

Heatwaves – hidden impacts 2003

2010

2013

2009

56,000

30-70,000

4-500

????? + Russia + Europe + USA

Mortality and Morbidity

• Literature concentrates on +65 due increased co-morbidity

(cardiovascular, renal, mental, ….) and age impairment;

isolation, socio-economic disadvantage, infrastructure,

fuel poverty…. +1000 Australians/year (McMichael 2003)

• What lessons so far:

– Severe heatwaves frequently bring forward anticipated

mortality, but also add morbidity burden

– Extreme heatwaves impact a wider demographic –

particularly the independent ‘young–old’, younger

outside workers and risk-takers.

+80,000 years life lost in Paris, 2003 extreme heatwave.

Churchill Fellowship – key findings

•Public expectations for reduced health impacts (ie. heatwaves);

•Strong partnerships between health authorities, weather agencies and

across government;

•Pursuit of evidenced based health mitigation plans supported by peer

reviewed literature; and

•Ongoing research on heatwave measures that reflect health impacts.

shared data: Syndromic Surveillance Systems (SSS)

common/shared community messages

event awareness

shared data: Nowcasting rapid SSS data (UK)

mortality, morbidity temperature, weather indices

GIS cadastral information

impact

Heat

Cold weather

Flooding

Drought

Wildfires and health impacts

Thunderstorm asthma

Volcanic ash

Marine toxicology

PHE Extreme Events bulletin

Other extreme event publications

Climate change

Disaster Risk Reduction

International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

Living with Environmental Change (LWEC) Health and Wellbeing Task Force

WHO Collaborating Centre for Mass Gatherings (with Extreme Events)

UK Recovery Handbook for Chemical Incidents (UKRHCI)

Environmental and public health toxicology publications and training

22 page report

Southeast Australia

extreme heatwave Jan/Feb 2009

Heat related mortality (green bars) and EHF (red squares, black

line) for the 2009 extreme heatwave in SA. The three-day average

daily temperature is superimposed, plotted against the first day of

the three day period (blue line).

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

<45 46-50 51-55 56-60 61-65 66-70 71-75 76-80 81-85 86-90 91-95

age group

num

ber

of d

eath

s

male

female

Heat-related mortality age

distribution for the 2009 extreme

heatwave in South Australia.

SA Coroner/State Pathologist data (published 2012)

2009 extreme heatwave impacts

Melbourne EHF (red squares, black lines), ambulance heat-

related tasks (green bars), daily temperature (solid blue line) and

Victorian Department of Health warning threshold of 30°C

(dashed blue line).

Vic Health report

Australian Government

Bureau of Meteorology Adelaide severe (length)

heatwave March 2008

Generalized Extreme Value theory

utilizing Peaks over Threshold

Severe threshold

Experimental Severe & Extreme Heatwave threshold

Generalized Pareto distribution function

– suited to fat tail distributions

80:20 rule for rareness or severity of

heatwave intensity. 1 X 2 X 3 X 4 X

Brisbane extreme heatwave

EHF period 21-23 Feb 2004

Severe Heatwave threshold using

1958 to 2009 AWAP data

Feb 2009 extreme heatwave

Peak intensity for Adelaide extreme

heatwave

Feb 2009 extreme heatwave

58 heat attributed deaths in Adelaide

March 2008 severe heatwave

One excess death

January 2013 severe/extreme heatwave

preceding 4 January fires

severe threshold

MetEye – the Bureau’s new

public display system showing

graphical (gridded) observation &

forecast data suited to an

objective heatwave/coldwave

algorithm.

Previous charts constructed

from high quality gridded

climate data

Heatwave Warning service interest?

International case studies

Paris experienced ~15,000 excess deaths in 2003

Peak amplitude of

~ 3 x sev threshold

Chicago 1995 ~ 700 excess deaths, then Chicago 1999 ~ 100 excess deaths

Peak amplitude, ~ 3.5 x sev threshold Peak amplitude briefly ~ 2 x sev threshold

Australian Government

Bureau of Meteorology

John Nairn

08 8366 2723

j.nairn@bom.gov.au

Thank you…

Partnerships needed across government

Data sharing essential

Targeted research essential

Bureau very interested in new impact services

Useful reports:

PricewaterhouseCoopers report – 2011, policy

CAWCR Technical Report (60) – 2013, science

Churchill Trust Report – 2013, international experience