The Jakarta Post
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsPublic health measures urged amid El Niño's extreme heat
In a study aiming at quantifying the relationship between temperature and excess mortality, researchers projected that Indonesia may see almost 20,000 extra heat-related deaths during this El Niño season.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Set as preferred source
Two women stand on the receded bank of the Kahayan River on Sept. 15 in Palangka Raya, Central Kalimantan. (Antara/Auliya Rahman)
I
ndonesia may see nearly 20,000 additional heat-related deaths until early next year due to El Niño, a report has suggested, with experts calling for improved efforts to mitigate the health impacts from the heat brought by the climate phenomenon.
In a report published on Sept. 23, the University of Chicago’s Climate Impact Lab projected around 451,000 additional deaths globally from extreme hot days during this year’s “Super El Niño” period, in which the warming of the southern Pacific Ocean is expected to be higher compared to previous El Niño seasons.
Most of the excess deaths will be observed in Global South countries, including Indonesia, which is expected to see 19,300 deaths until next February, the second highest after Nigeria with 31,400. Across Southeast Asia, the researchers projected a total of 19,400 additional deaths in the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia.
Researchers aimed to quantify the relationship between temperature and excess mortality by accounting for differences in local climate, vulnerability and capacity to adjust to extreme temperatures, explained Genevieve Maricle, executive director of the Climate Impact Lab, in a recent interview with The Jakarta Post.
To get the number, the researchers broke the world down into 24,378 regions and applied various weather forecasting models, including one produced by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts to estimate excess temperature-related deaths.
She further explained the researchers saw several factors that drive the projection of heat-related deaths, such as the population of a region, resilience to heat and historical mortality response to temperature.
Several weather forecasts projected Indonesia to be around 1 to 2 degrees Celsius hotter than average because of El Niño until February, and the country could see excess deaths because of hot temperature already, according to the researchers.
