| Global warming harbinger | |
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Spreading disease |
Bangladesh
Researchers found a robust relationship between progressively stronger El Niņo events and cholera prevalence, spanning a 70-year period from 1893-1940 and 1980-2001. There has been a marked intensification of the El Niņo/Southern Oscillation phenomenon since the 1980s, which is not fully explained by the known shifts in the Pacific basin temperature regime that began in the mid-1970s. Findings by Rodo et al. are consistent with model projections of El Niņo intensification under global warming conditions. The authors make a strong case for the climate-health link by providing evidence for biological sensitivity to climate, meteorological evidence of climate change, and evidence of epidemiological change with global warming. The study likely represents the first piece of evidence that warming trends over the last century are affecting human disease.
Reference: Rodo, X., M. Pascual, G. Fuchs, and A.S.G. Faruque, 2002. ENSO and cholera: A nonstationary link related to climate change? Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 99, 20: 12901-12906.
Patz, J.A., 2002. A human disease indicator for the effects of recent global climate change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 99, 20: 12506-12508.
