Researchers looking to obtain more accurate data for deaths attributable to heat have updated a previous finding and estimated that 236 people have died this summer in the Balearics because of heat. Last month they gave a figure of 190.
Dominic Royé, a member of the research project team, says that the data are drawn from the MOMO daily mortality monitoring system and temperatures recorded by the Aemet met agency. An application they have developed, Heat-Attributable Mortality in Spain, is "a state-of-the-art statistical model widely used in environmental health studies".
Of the 236 deaths, 217 were attributable to moderate heat and 19 to extreme heat. According to figures they have arrived at for previous years, there have been fewer deaths this year than in 2023 - 277. The year with the highest mortality rate attributable to high temperatures was 2022, when it is estimated that there were 339. The lowest rate to have been calculated is 205 in 2018; the 2024 figure is the second lowest.
Royé explains that it is not possible to speak of a downward trend because the series (only since 2018) is very short. He believes that this year's decrease is mainly because there have been fewer days of extreme heat, a total of four. In 2023 there were twelve and in 2022 there were eight.
"There are people who feel that this summer has been cool, although temperatures have been above normal in much of the region."