The History Of Climate Change

The history of climate change as a science can be traced back to the 1860s, when physicist John Tyndall conducted experiments to understand molecular physics, particularly the heat-absorbing abilities of atmospheric gases. Tyndall found that molecules absorb more heat than their individual atomic components, and that the naturally-occurring greenhouse gas nitric oxide absorbs approximately one thousand times more infrared energy than nitrogen or oxygen alone. The concept of climate change as a result of increasing greenhouse gases was first proposed by Svante Arrhenius in the late nineteenth century. Although Arrhenius was primarily a physicist like Tyndall, he also studied the effects of carbon dioxide on surface temperature. Using findings …show more content…
In the case of vector-borne infectious diseases, a competent vector must also be present to transmit the pathogen to the host. A vector is defined as an animal, insect, or other organism that carries a pathogen and spreads it to another organism. With the environment rapidly changing and conducive weather events shown to increase, regions that were formerly uninhabitable to some pathogens – and their vectors and nonhuman reservoir hosts – may soon become hospitable enough to support them. Infectious disease research suggests that changes in the environmental conditions may affect the traits of hosts, pathogens, and vectors, as well as the interactions between them (Gallana et al. 2013). Climate change is likely to affect infectious diseases via one or more of four mechanisms (Mills et al. 2010). First, it may cause shifts in the range of hosts or vectors, bringing the pathogen closer to new communities. Second, it may impact host or vector population densities which would then impact the possibility of contact with humans. Third, it may influence the incidence of infection in host or vector populations; fourth, climate change could affect rates of pathogen proliferation and, by extension, the chance of contact with …show more content…
It is uncommon in industrialized countries, but communities in the tropical regions and undeveloped areas are plagued by cholera outbreaks due to the conducive environment for both pathogen and host. Cholera infections occur in three to five million people every year (WHO 2016). Copepods, zooplankton which act as a host for cholera bacteria, play a primary role in the tropical ecosystem and bloom in nutrient-rich waters. The risk of an outbreak can never be completely ruled out in these areas, and increasing temperatures and more frequent catastrophic events like earthquakes and hurricanes may allow for the disease’s spread to other climates. Many people who become infected are able to recover from the illness with rehydration treatments, but the disease is still a threat due to the fact that the bacterium is extremely capable of lateral gene transfer. This means that less infectious strains with toxin-coding genes may pass their code on to a more infectious strain (Ackerman 2015). With the possibility of new strains and a wider range of inhabitable areas for the cholera bacterium and its invertebrate host, cholera is a disease that could threaten many more regions than