A new heat wave has swept across Europe and brought with it several hot days in Germany as well. On such days, the maximum daily temperature is at least 30 degrees Celsius and there is an increased risk of heat stroke, especially for older people and small children.
Advertisement
Last year we experienced 17 such “tropical days” in Germany – significantly more than in previous years. As the Statista infographic shows, as the number of hot days increases, so does the number of hospital treatments for heat and sunlight. These were particularly high in 2015 – the German Weather Service also registered around 17 days with a nationwide average temperature of 30 degrees.
Fatal consequences of dehydration on hot days
In extreme temperatures there is a high risk of dehydration. The so-called volume deficiency is often the cause of hospital stays and deaths on warm days. Hospital treatments for dehydration have more than doubled in the last 20 years. In 2021, around 107,545 patients were hospitalized for acute dehydration. The danger is even more evident in the increase in deaths. In 2001 there were an estimated 500 deaths – in 2021 almost 3,500 people had died as a result of dehydration.
(Bild:
shutterstock/3dmask
)
In our weekly column we present numbers, curves and diagrams from technology and science.
Furthermore, European climate data show that there are around eight times as many extreme temperature events today as in the 1980s. At that time, the researchers only registered about twelve cases in which the temperatures deviated extremely from normal. In the 2010s, on the other hand, 95 such incidents were counted, compared to 123 a decade earlier.
(jl)
To home page