In Sickness and in Health
Mother Earth has a fever and we can’t take her to the emergency room. Greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere are changing the climate and raising the earth’s mean temperature. Recent studies out of the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences suggest that we can expect more changes than just the temperature. Even for hot weather fans, there’s cause for concern because the worse Mother Earth feels, the worse you may feel, too.
To the Extremes
For years, researchers, scientists, politicians, and civilians concerned with the environment have discussed global warming and its potential effects on the planet. The forecast looks hot — a little too hot, in some cases. A study led by Noah S. Diffenbaugh, assistant professor of earth and atmospheric sciences, predicts that increases in greenhouse gasses over the next hundred years will lead to a corresponding increase in what researchers call “extreme weather events.”
“This means you’re looking at potentially more frequent floods in some areas, and in other areas, more frequent droughts.”
“There is a lot of agreement between the direction that extreme events have been going over the last 10–50 years and the patterns that we project for the future,” says Diffenbaugh. According to his models, that direction could include more heat waves in the southwest, longer and hotter summers in the northeast, and severe changes in the cycles of precipitation on the Gulf Coast. For 2006, hurricane experts are already predicting a busy season, similar to the 2005 season that included Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. Longer and hotter summers in the Midwest and Southwest could increase the number of heat-related illnesses and deaths each year, especially in larger cities and in high-risk populations.
The models also project both extreme temperature and precipitation increases in the United States. “This means you’re looking at potentially more frequent floods in some areas, and in other areas, more frequent droughts,” Diffenbaugh says. In addition to causing damage to buildings and homes, floods can leave victims with contaminated food and drinking water, facilitating the spread of bacteria and viruses to the human population. This can be particularly true in developing regions. “We’re starting to study how these sorts of climate changes might influence the spread of infectious diseases, particularly exotic ones,” he says.
Diffenbaugh notes that these studies are not proof that these trends will continue or that human greenhouse gas emissions have caused the recent trends, but he says it is an indication that the direction climate change is currently taking could continue through the next century.
“Green” Days
Some television stations include air quality reports in their newscasts — green days are best, followed by yellow, then orange, and red. But rising temperatures could mean fewer green days, says Dev Niyogi, assistant professor in earth and atmospheric sciences and agronomy and state climatologist. This is because air quality and air temperature are often coupled, although he says it is difficult to dissociate which is the cause and which is the effect. “In some cases the increase in air temperature can increase the potential for surface ozone through a complex set of sunlight-related reactions and thus lead to a poor air quality,” Niyogi says. “In other cases poor air quality, resulting, for example, from soot particles from vehicles and industrial sources, can cause increases in air temperature.” For densely populated cities that pump gallons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, this association between air quality and temperature can make inversions, which trap pollutants at lower elevations, more frequent. And according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, higher air pollution levels have been associated with increased respiratory health problems, such as asthma and respiratory infections.Major Research for Major Problems
Changes are on the way, say scientists. Without the ability to rewind time, current research focuses on understanding potential impacts of these changes and their impacts upon us. Years ago, cholera raged in developing countries, and it still does to some extent. But by understanding the nature of the bacteria, bacteriologist Dr. Rita Colwell (featured here) was able to develop a simple straining system for water that decreased the incidence of the disease by half. Decades later, we find ourselves again with our health visibly impacted by our changing world.