How climate change influences thinking and why it could cause 26,000 more

According to a new study published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, variable seasons could even lead to 26,000 additional suicides in the United States by 2050.

"C & # 39; is a kind of brutal discovery, "author of the study and Marshall Burke, a professor at Stanford University, told the Atlantic

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Burke and his colleagues analyzed complete mortality data for several decades for the United States and Mexico, two countries that account for about 7% of suicides worldwide. By interpolating the monthly temperature and precipitation data from the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía in Mexico, the US PRISM climate data set and more than 10,000 US weather stations, the researchers established models to estimate displacement effects on future suicides.
>> In relation: The suicide rate has increased by 16% in Georgia, according to the CDC

They also studied depressive language in social media by collecting geo-localized Twitter data to study how temperatures increase the likelihood of using specific depressive keywords in tweets. their historical estimates of the effect of temperature on suicide to estimate the potential increase in suicide rate due to warming by 2050.

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Key Findings

According to robust projection data, the authors of the study predict that about 14,000 people in the United States – and up to 26,000 – could commit suicide by 2050 if global temperatures continue to increase, even after controlling for all other major variables

If monthly temperatures are one degree higher at Celsius, researchers estimate that suicide rates will increase by 0, 7% in the United States and 2.1% in Mexico

"Climate change will generate winners. and the losers – that's a phrase you hear all the time, "Burke said. "But for this result, everything is losing, there are no winners, we find these strong linear relationships everywhere as you raise the temperature."

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The researchers did not draw any conclusions about the mechanisms underlying the relationship between climate and suicide, but they did address the earlier science revealing how thermoregulation and other neurological responses to high temperature directly affect the mental well-being of individuals. in more than half of all suicides.

Previous research of the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health also found that people with heat tend to have decreased cognitive function.

>> Related: 2017 was the hottest year ever recorded in Georgia, according to a state climatologist

Unlike other causes of death due to temperature, "suicide increases hot and decreases at low temperatures," write the authors of the Nature study. In addition, "the effect of temperature on suicide has not decreased over time and does not appear to decrease with increasing income or the adoption of air conditioning."

According to the results, the predicted effects of climate change on suicide rates by 2050 are "two to four times the estimated effect of a 1% increase in the unemployment rate in the "European Union" and "about a third as large in absolute magnitude (with opposite sign) as the estimated effect of laws on the state."

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"The sheer scale of our findings adds a new impetus to better understand why temperature affects suicide and to implement policies to mitigate the rise in future temperatures," the authors conclude.

Read the complete study at nature.com .

Last year was the hottest year in Georgia with a record average temperature of 65.8 degrees, according to climatologist Bill Murphey. The majority of the country also experienced above-average temperatures in 2017.

The country also experienced a nearly 30% increase in suicide rates between 1999-2016, according to the Center for Disease Prevention and Control of Atlanta

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>> Related: What Kills American Teens? In the new mortality ratio of the CDC

Between 1996 and 2016, Georgia experienced a 16.2% increase in suicide rates, comparatively low among the 25 states where suicide rates increased by almost 30%. But this is still considered a significant increase, according to the CDC.

If you or someone you know are planning to commit suicide, or if you are worried about someone else, here are some helpful resources:

National Lifeline for the suicide prevention (24 hours)

Call 1-800-273-8255

Online Chat

Suicide Prevention Resources for Parents, Guardians and Families

Suicide Prevention Resources for Adolescents

Suicide Prevention Resources for Survivors of Suicide Loss

More resources and programs at the Suicide Prevention Resource Center.