Severe heat waves -- characterized by stagnant masses of warm air and consecutive nights with high minimum temperatures -- will intensify in the United States and Canada, according to the data on North America released Monday by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Global warming is already affecting people's health, said Kristi Ebi, an epidemiologist from Virginia and lead author of a chapter on human health written for the international science panel.
People will eventually better respond to heat waves with health care system improvements. They'll even adjust physiologically to warmer temperatures.
"It's while all of this is changing when you have high health impacts. And that could be in the next few decades,'' Ebi said in an interview.
The report singled out other health effects related to global warming.
