More children, young adults are drowning during the winter, study finds. Here’s why
Over 4,000 people, mostly children and young adults, fatally drowned in the last 26 years by falling through ice during the winter, and experts say warmer air temperatures are likely to blame.
Researchers from York University in Canada analyzed climate data, death records and population statistics from 10 Northern Hemisphere countries including Canada, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Russia, Sweden and the United States.
The team found that winter drownings contributed to 15% to 25% of total annual drownings in some countries, and as high as 50% in others.
Meanwhile, nearly 50% of drowning victims were children younger than 9 who were playing on ice; the rest of the majority were adults younger than 24 who fell through ice while driving vehicles such as snowmobiles, according to study lead author Sapna Sharma, an associate professor of science at York University.
This is because young and middle-aged people are known to engage in more risky behaviors in general and participate in more winter activities such as ice fishing, the researchers wrote in their study published Nov. 18 in the journal PLOS One.
Researchers examined lake-ice trends over hundreds of years, learning that ice now forms later in the season and melts earlier, Sharma said in a news release.
“The climate is changing and it’s affecting when you can be on the ice safely, Sharma said. “Individuals need to take that into account, especially this winter when more individuals will be out enjoying winter ice activities.”
Cold-water drownings are particularly dangerous because people immediately feel the “cold shock response,” the researchers said, which involves gasping and uncontrolled breathing for up to two minutes. Mild hypothermia can occur after about 30 minutes, and unconsciousness, cardiac arrhythmia and death can occur after two or more hours.
When winter air temperatures reached between 50 degrees and 41 degrees Fahrenheit, drownings “rose substantially,” researchers said. Drownings fell “drastically” at any temperature above that, “likely because the ice was visibly unsafe or non-existent.”
When temperatures reached freezing, or 32 degrees Fahrenheit, the number of drownings were up five times higher than usual. Generally, the risk of drowning is greatest at the beginning and end of winter, which also corresponds to the weakest ice, when it is less stable and less thick, Sharma said.
Canada had the highest number of winter drownings of all 10 countries analyzed, according to the study. Locations studied in the U.S. included Alaska, Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wisconsin.
In places like Germany and Italy, where there are strong regulations about who can go on ice and for what activities, drownings occurred at lower rates, the study says.
As temperatures gradually increase due to global warming, lakes, rivers and seas will continue to experience earlier ice break-up, later ice formation, shorter seasons of ice cover and decreases in ice thickness. In some regions, ice cover may not form at all, the researchers said.
“With warmer winters, ice cover will become more unpredictable, to the extent that a 1°C increase in average annual air temperatures could eliminate consistent lake ice cover for 100 million people who typically have access to a frozen lake,” the researchers wrote in their study.
“Human lives could be saved if considerations of air temperatures integrated throughout the winter were included in individual decision-making and risk calculations on the ice,” they added.
This story was originally published November 19, 2020 at 10:43 AM.
