A human disease indicator for the effects of recent global climate change

Connections between weather and disease are well established, with many diseases occurring during certain seasons or erupting from unseasonable flood or drought conditions. With new concerns about global warming, accompanied by greater climate variability, many recent studies have focused on disease fluctuations related to short-term or interannual climate oscillations (e.g., from weather extremes driven by El Nino). Yet, the nagging question remains as to whether or not there has been any documented change in human disease trends in response to long-term climate change, since warming has already occurred over the last century (1, 2). This study likely represents the first piece of evidence that warming trends over the last century are affecting human disease.

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