A new study finds that deaths related to cold weather in the United States have risen in the past two decades.. Deaths related to cold weather have risen steadily nationwide in recent decades, new research shows, underscoring the continued risks of cold exposure even as average temperatures continue to climb.. The study, which examined data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that the rate of deaths in which cold was an underlying or contributing cause more than doubled between 1999 and 2022, with the highest mortality rates recorded in the Midwest. In 2022, 3,571 people died of causes linked to cold weather, the study’s authors said.. “Even though we are in this warming world, cold-related deaths are still a public health issue in the U.S.,” said Michael Liu, a student at Harvard Medical School and the lead author of the study.. Winters in much of America are now, on average, 4 degrees warmer than they were a half-century ago, according to Climate Central, an independent research group. But climate change has also led to more bursts of extremely cold winter weather, including polar vortexes, which occur when Arctic air blows into the United States.. This “winter whiplash,” as Victor Gensini, a professor of meteorology at Northern Illinois University, describes it, can make people more vulnerable to cold snaps.. “We are less accustomed to experiencing those cold temperatures,” he said, “so that when they do occur, it is much more of a shock to the system.”. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.. Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.. Thank you for your patience while we verify access.. Already a subscriber? Log in.. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
