In a recent article titled “Climate change making it harder for us to sleep, study says,” ABC News claimed that climate change is now not just responsible for hurricanes, wildfires, and flooding—it’s also robbing us of our sleep. [emphasis, links added]
This evidence for this is at best scientifically flimsy and at worst flatly false.
Data does not show that heat waves or nighttime temperatures are increasing globally in a way that would significantly disrupt human sleep patterns.
“If temperature keeps rising the way they project it to, the burden and prevalence of sleep apnea may double, increasing by 20-100%, depending on greenhouse gas emission reduction,” Bastien Lechat, the lead author of the study that ABC News based its story on, told the news service.
First, it’s important to note that a large portion of the measured temperature rise in cities is due to the well-known Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect, not long-term climate change.
Studies show that local temperatures, particularly nighttime temperatures, are elevated in urban areas because of concrete, asphalt, and heat retention from human activity. This effect can easily be mistaken for broader climate warming if not properly controlled for in studies.
As noted by Climate Realism, the UHI effect significantly skews local temperature readings and has not been adequately accounted for in many of the studies used to bolster claims of increasing nighttime heat waves.
The article’s alarm about rising nighttime temperatures is further undermined by the fact that global average temperatures have risen by mere tenths of a degree over the past several decades.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), global nighttime minimum temperatures have increased by only about 0.15°C per decade since 1950. Even if this rate continued, the changes would be too small to create the sort of sweeping health crisis ABC News is forecasting.
Most of the year is well below the extreme nighttime temperature pegged by the authors of the Nature study as leading to increasing incidences of sleep apnea.
Winter nighttime lows could rise from 30℉ to even 50℉ and not have an impact. During the summer, average nighttime low temperatures across the U.S. and China, for example, even in July, are in the 60s and 70s.
The primary causes of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) are well-known and have nothing to do with ambient temperatures.
So temperatures there would have to rise regularly by more than 10 degrees to meet or exceed the 81.4℉ temperature cited in the study as problematic, but temperatures have only risen by less than 2℉ since 1950. ABC News missed this fact entirely.
Attributing the rise in sleep apnea to climate change is a medical misdiagnosis. The primary causes of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) are well-known and have nothing to do with ambient temperatures.
According to the Mayo Clinic, the main risk factors for sleep apnea include obesity, thick neck circumference, narrowed airways, family history, use of alcohol or sedatives, smoking, nasal congestion, and certain medical conditions such as high blood pressure.
Nowhere in this list does “climate change” appear.
And nowhere in the study does it indicate that it controlled for these known risk factors to tease out any additional suffering from warming.
Additionally, a systematic review in the journal Sleep Medicine Reviews confirmed that weight gain and anatomical factors are the dominant contributors to sleep apnea worldwide. It is simply not credible for ABC News to suggest that a few tenths of a degree in nighttime temperature could double sleep apnea cases globally.
ABC News also misses the mark when it tries to link restless nights to warmer temperatures.
According to Harvard Medical School, the most common contributors to insomnia and poor sleep include stress, anxiety, depression, irregular sleep schedules, and lifestyle factors such as caffeine or alcohol use.
Temperature can play a role, but as a relatively minor factor when compared to these well-documented causes.
Even studies that explore the relationship between temperature and sleep quality, including the one cited by ABC News, acknowledge that the observed changes in sleep duration and quality are often minimal, sometimes amounting to a few minutes per night.
These small statistical changes are hardly the public health emergency ABC News is suggesting.
Furthermore, the claim that a 40 to 45 percent increase in sleep apnea episodes on hot days is contextually void. This claim, that ABC News pulled from the Nature Communications study, is based on comparing extreme heat days to cooler ones, but this does not establish a causal relationship over time.
It also does not account for confounding variables like UHI effects, indoor climate control (air conditioning is common in most of the developed world), and individual health status.
Basing health projections on worst-case emissions scenarios that climate science itself has walked back is scientifically suspect, if not invalid.
On top of this, the article’s sweeping predictions rely heavily on speculative future warming scenarios, specifically the high-emission RCP8.5 pathway, which is now widely regarded by climate scientists as implausible.
Basing health projections on worst-case emissions scenarios that climate science itself has walked back is scientifically suspect, if not invalid.
Also, global access to air conditioning is increasing steadily, particularly in regions where warmer nighttime temperatures might otherwise cause discomfort.
If temperature impacts sleep apnea, indoor air temperatures are what matter, not outdoor air, and with air conditioning, indoor air can be controlled.
A report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) highlights that the growing adoption of air conditioning will continue to mitigate heat-related health risks, including poor sleep. Ignoring this technological adaptation is yet another oversight in the ABC News’ article.
To summarize: urban heat islands skew local temperature readings, medical literature firmly identifies lifestyle and anatomical factors as the primary causes of sleep apnea, and modern adaptation technologies like air conditioning can mitigate heat impacts.
The global warming trend, when properly accounted for, is insufficient to explain any significant increase in sleep apnea cases or widespread sleep deprivation.
In the end, ABC News has cobbled together a tenuous connection between climate change and a growing health concern—sleep apnea—while ignoring the substantial medical and social factors that contribute to the problem and technological factors that could mitigate or reduce it regardless of outside temperatures.
ABC News should be embarrassed by this piece that borders on the absurd. Climate change is causing sleep apnea. Really? Next, they’ll tell us climate change is making our toast burn in the morning.
Top Photo by Kampus Production via Pexels
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