Are you having trouble sleeping? Criticizing climate change

“The impact of ambient temperatures on sleep and the stages under climate change are increasingly concerning, but they remain under-adopted.”

This incredible statement begins a summary of the study published in the Journal of Nature Communications on March 17, 2025, St. Patrick's Day. However, the “green” they are selling is a darker shade than the emerald isle.

Instead, the author is from Shanghai and Beijing, China, and edited the Chinese exam subject “214,445 days of 23 million days of sleep monitoring data.” They tallyed that with every 10 degrees Celsius, both the quality and duration of sleep suddenly decreased.

You might think 10 degrees Celsius is a pretty jump! What did these poor test participants endure during this study?

do not be afraid. The authors did not measure actual indoor temperatures. This is a known factor that affects sleep quality. Instead, they used a computer model. Of course they did! After all, you can't make fun of the results you need from the actual data.

Instead, they adopted predicted temperature data from the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and weather data from Copernicus, the European Union's NASA equivalent. They correlated this data with the “cardiopulmonary coupling” app for smart devices worn by study participants.

What's not going well?

After many data grids, the authors calculated that “by the end of the century, sleep deprivation could increase by 10.50%, with an annual loss of 33.28 hours of sleep per person.” (NB is less than two days per year.) People at the greatest risk of insomnia are elderly, women and obese people. These estimates were based on the UN Intergovernmental Panel on the worst-case climate change emission scenarios.

“Our findings underscore the importance of mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and implementing adaptive measurements tailored to vulnerable regions and subgroups.

You may wonder if they are considering other insomnia-inducing causes, such as screen time, medical conditions (hormonal variation, sleep apnea), lifestyle choices (e.g., diet, drug use), or actual non-model-based environmental factors (light and noise levels, bedding quality, indoor temperature, etc.).

Why do they do that? Scholars know better than anyone that a way to earn ongoing research funding is to blame for climate change.