Heat-related mortality and morbidity will be increased slightly; respectively wintertime mortality and morbidity will decrease under a warming environmental temperature. Short-term extreme weather events will probably cause most of additional burden of climate induced adverse health outcomes in Finland. In increased risks are elderly and children, and those with poor health. A risk of some infectious diseases may increase.
There is a consensus that population would adjust successfully, with little increase in heat related mortality, to climate warming predicted to occur in the next half century. However, the physiologic adaptation responses are not developed to short-term hazardous or extreme weather events. The adaptive capacity of Finnish society is fairly good as we are able to maintain the public health infrastructure and achieve sustainable political and economical development. Ageing population together with threats posed by climate has to be underlined. Urbanization may decrease the adaptive capacity as urban population is considered to cope less well with harsh climatic conditions as their counterparts in rural areas do. This means threats for especially teenagers and old people. Spontaneous adjustments to extreme heat might not compensate fully for effects of future heat waves in Finland. The future adaptive capacity is also a function of population health status and pre-existing disease burdens
