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Tasdik wrote:Apparently, there is a "heatwave" going through the UK atm. Over 700 people have died from it so far, with that number expected to rise.

While that's horrible, apparently the hottest its gotten is 30 degrees celsius. Aka 86 degrees F°.

How the **** is such a low amount of heat killing so many people? Here in America we had heat waves of like 115°, and had nowhere near the deaths the UK has had.

Ganja wrote:This might seem like a silly question but do a lot of people have A/C in England? I know here in the south it's a necessity(as a land lord you have to provide a proper A/C unit to cool the house). But in California it was not a necessity because some places don't really get that hot. Where I used to live we only had central heating for night times.

MrTwilliger wrote:700 people have died due to heat related illness? That's so shocking. Perhaps I'm just use to the heat, but summers here in Australia will see temperatures reaching 47-50 degrees Celsius. 40-42 Celsius is pretty common in the summer and a week or two of consistent 40+ degree weather is almost expected. Perhaps the people affected are simply not use to that sort of heat? None the less its a terrible thing to hear

I Am Vegeta wrote:

MrTwilliger wrote:700 people have died due to heat related illness? That's so shocking. Perhaps I'm just use to the heat, but summers here in Australia will see temperatures reaching 47-50 degrees Celsius. 40-42 Celsius is pretty common in the summer and a week or two of consistent 40+ degree weather is almost expected. Perhaps the people affected are simply not use to that sort of heat? None the less its a terrible thing to hear

over here the temperatore go from -40 to +40

aussie got it easy

Fiction wrote:
TL;DR: Buddy almost died of a heat stroke yesterday on our way home. Pretty insane and scary shit.

Mayumi wrote:Media and there lies

"Up to 760 people dead so far" - Rubbish, here is the truth of it all.

1. There are lots of different things listed as 'cause of death', including 'influenza', 'senility' and 'malignant neoplasms' in national statistics. Neither 'sun' nor 'heatwave' are on the list.

2. Perhaps then, the statisticians looked at causes of death such as 'asthma' or 'pulmonary disease' that might have been aggravated in raised temperatures. That seems unlikely given that these statistics are released on an annual basis and statistics for 2012 were only just released a week ago.

3. Maybe, noticing this timing problem, the statisticians issued freedom of information requests to every coroner in the country. That's not only unlikely but also inaccurate - it can take up to five days to register a death, so the information received wouldn't be sufficient to understand what the mortality figures of our nine-day heatwave are so far.

One other method seems plausible: perhaps the researchers looked at the number of Brits that die each year and compared that to the number of heatwaves or average summer temperatures.

But let's assume that the researchers also controlled for a couple of things to be able to observe the effects of temperature. That would mean they've been able to take things like demography, changes in the provision of drugs and healthcare services out of the equation, as well as any diseases or viruses that may affect the number of deaths that are registered. That would allow them to really hone in on what the heatwave is doing to us.

If that were the case, they must have noticed a spike in the number of deaths, or to be more precise, predicted an increase. That 'spike' consists of 540-760 people of a total of about 110,000 deaths on average in England and Wales between June and August each year.

But averages don't always mean a lot - unless you're measuring something like the number of hours in a day, you'll always get numbers that differ from an average.

BuDo wrote:

Mayumi wrote:Media and there lies

"Up to 760 people dead so far" - Rubbish, here is the truth of it all.

1. There are lots of different things listed as 'cause of death', including 'influenza', 'senility' and 'malignant neoplasms' in national statistics. Neither 'sun' nor 'heatwave' are on the list.

2. Perhaps then, the statisticians looked at causes of death such as 'asthma' or 'pulmonary disease' that might have been aggravated in raised temperatures. That seems unlikely given that these statistics are released on an annual basis and statistics for 2012 were only just released a week ago.

3. Maybe, noticing this timing problem, the statisticians issued freedom of information requests to every coroner in the country. That's not only unlikely but also inaccurate - it can take up to five days to register a death, so the information received wouldn't be sufficient to understand what the mortality figures of our nine-day heatwave are so far.

One other method seems plausible: perhaps the researchers looked at the number of Brits that die each year and compared that to the number of heatwaves or average summer temperatures.

But let's assume that the researchers also controlled for a couple of things to be able to observe the effects of temperature. That would mean they've been able to take things like demography, changes in the provision of drugs and healthcare services out of the equation, as well as any diseases or viruses that may affect the number of deaths that are registered. That would allow them to really hone in on what the heatwave is doing to us.

If that were the case, they must have noticed a spike in the number of deaths, or to be more precise, predicted an increase. That 'spike' consists of 540-760 people of a total of about 110,000 deaths on average in England and Wales between June and August each year.

But averages don't always mean a lot - unless you're measuring something like the number of hours in a day, you'll always get numbers that differ from an average.

Stay cool bud... ice in the tub should do it...