This project is part of the The UK Climate Resilience Programme - a four-year Strategic Priorities Fund (SPF) interdisciplinary research programme led jointly by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the Met Office.

The aim of this project is to develop new datasets of regional mortality attributed to non-optimal temperatures based on the new HadUK-Grid dataset. These datasets and statistical models have been supplied to the Met Office and are available through the MEDMI portal. Combining up-to-date mortality, hospital admissions and meteorological data have produced the best, current estimate of how climate variability has affected mortality in the past. This data can be used by many other projects and end-users to anticipate the impact of climate variability on the health and social care sectors.

The same statistical models have been applied to the UKCP18 climate projections for the UK. The datasets produced from this analysis, including alternative versions which explore the impact of uncertainty on future projections, are also available from the Met Office to help prepared end-users in the health and social care sectors to adapt to climate change. A key from this analysis is that temperature related mortality in the UK is strongly linked to changes in global mean temperature. When global mean warming exceeds two degrees above pre-industrial temperatures, the number of deaths due to hot weather accelerates rapidly without significant adaptation.

A greater understanding of the link between recurrent, typical weather patterns in the North Atlantic and the UK and mortality was developed. This approach could allow new application of longer range forecasts for the health sector to be developed.