Thomas Fuller of the San Francisco Examiner has a great piece which summarizes the issue of climate and malaria and Mann. Like with the imagined increase in hurricane frequency due to global warming, so it goes with malaria. There’s no correlation. The premise is false.
On Monday, May 17th, I had the privilege of sitting on a panel at the Heartland Institute Chicago ICCC4 conference with regular WUWT contributor Dr. Indur Goklany. He gave his views on the declining mortality we’ve seen worldwide and has published several pieces here on WUWT. He also the author of the book: “ The Improving State of the World”. “Goks” (as his friends call him) gave a PowerPoint presentation on declining mortality in a warming world and you can view the PPT File here.
I’ve culled one of the slides he presented below. If this doesn’t offer proof that when it comes to mankind that “warmer is better”, I don’t know what would. Note the reversal in the southern hemisphere with Australia and New Zealand.
But the most interesting slide is number 10, showing the drop in Malaria worldwide:
Thomas Fuller covers the Mann-Malaria issue below:
Correspondent Barry Woods has done all the heavy lifting on this story, so if you like it, kudos to him–any errors of course are my responsibility.
In the Guardian today there is an article following on about the story of malaria and climate change. I like the quote from Peter Gething of Oxford: “If we were to go back to the 1900s with the correct climate change predictions for the 20th century, modellers would predict expansion and worsening of malaria and they would have been wrong, and we believe they are wrong now.” That’s because despite global warming for the past 30 years, the geographic extent of malaria has lessened, leading logical thinkers to guess that climate change has not worsened the spread of malaria.
Gething was referring to his study published yesterday in Nature that found that bednets and drugs will influence the spread of malaria far more than will climate change, challenging fears that warming will aggravate the disease in Africa.
Many researchers have predicted that rising temperatures will cause malaria to expand its range and intensify in its current strongholds. But unlike usual models, which aim to predict how climate change will affect malaria in the future, researchers looked at how warming affected the disease throughout the last century.
They used a recent epidemiological map of the global distribution of the major malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum, and compared this with historical data on malaria’s prevalence in the 1900s.
The researchers — whose work was published in Nature yesterday (20 May) — found that despite global warming, the prevalence of malaria decreased, which they attribute to disease and mosquito control programmes.
Or so you would think. But Matthew Thomas thinks differently. Matthew Thomas said that the study “plays down the potential importance of climate [change]”.
Who is Matthew Thomas? He is a researcher at… Penn State. Matthew Thomas is a researcher… at Penn State… who has just won a $1.8 million grant to study the influence of environmental temperature on transmission of vector-borne diseases. Think he has a dog in this hunt?
Ask his co-investigator on the project. Michael Mann…
Where do we ask for a refund?
…
Read the rest here and tell Tom I sent you. Bookmark his page.
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Oil that has entered wetlands may never be able to be removed:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iyCzi7JFE0-cRyBdBUMmDC6Zm9GgD9FS2VR00
Why does it cost $1.8 million when you can use a bit of logic for half an hour for no cost?
The fact that Mann is involved in investigating the impact of warming on malaria just goes to show that he is not a scientist, but an advocate. He not only has no expertise in this area, but anyone who thinks that malaria will be spread by warming has to be ignorant of several important facts, or deliberately hiding them.
You know, malaria was endemic all the way up to the Canadian border in the US during the Little Ice Age. These days you have to cross the Rio Grande to find a lot of case of malaria. Did the Earth cool? No, America got rich. And when (if?) the developing world does so, BY BURNING FOSSIL FUELS, they will eradicate malaria too.
In fact, malaria plagued Siberia up until the ’50s.
In last 2-3 days I listen to most of the presentations at the ICCC.
Number of speakers compared the global temperature rise 1910-1940 and 1970-2000 periods. I think such comparison is (imho) are wrong, at least for the CET.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET5.htm
The graph shows deference between the summer and winter temperatures (11 year moving average) normalised at +11.5 degrees C. It shows that the 1900-1940 period is (very) odd one out.
I would be grateful if any of the experts, from the conference or otherwise, wish to comment.
Australia tends to be hotter than New Zealand. It’s interesting that mortality in NZ is higher than Australia in July (i.e. winter) while mortality in Australia is higher in February, when it’s a bit too hot.
Thank you, Anthony Watts, for a wonderful piece of work. In this area of study, the relationship between temperature and malaria, there are empirical hypotheses that have enjoyed a considerable degree of confirmation. In other words, this is real science. By contrast, the climategaters have no empirical hypotheses regarding their mythical “forcings” and are blowing hot air. Of course, once Mann and his students take up the study of malaria, you can rest assured that he will find a “Malaria Hockey Stick.” He will. He is incorrigible. Just wait.
In the annals of planets are always changing, Jupiter loses a major atmospheric cloud belt:
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/20may_loststripe/
As to the malaria study being science, it is laughable as the changes in malaria itself through selection as it evolves will greatly outweigh any changes due to warming, if in fact there are any.
vukcevic-Interesting that you should mention the different summer/winter warming behavior during that period versus others. It was different in the US too:
http://www.int-res.com/articles/cr/17/c017p045.pdf
For some reason, the early twentieth century warming experienced a generally more extreme climate, at least in terms of temperature. In the US we also had the Dust Bowl droughts at the end of that period. Recent warming has been more benign (AGW?).
timetochoseagain:
A point of clarification: According to Fischer’s excellent recent biography of the 17th Century French explorer, Champlain suffered from malaria as did many of the early French settlers. This suggests that malaria was prevalent north of the Canadian border.
In the original article Thomas gives his reasons for his concerns. It is fair to ask if the quest for grant money plays a role in his motivation. But, simply chopping out the justifications he gave is not fair – it is propaganda. Challenge his reasoning and his motives if you want. But don’t ignore the former.
—-
http://www.scidev.net/en/news/new-twist-in-debate-on-climate-change-and-malaria.html
But Matthew Thomas, researcher at Pennsylvania State University, United States, said that the study “plays down the potential importance of climate [change]”.
“It is very easy to come up with a superficial model,” he said, adding that this controversial area requires better science and more investigation of basic biology before reaching any firm conclusions about climate effects on malaria.
He pointed out that the Nature study predicts a background expansion and intensification of malaria, which needs to be taken into account when designing approaches to the disease.
“Drug and insecticide resistance could make future interventions less effective,” he added, and so even small effects of climate have to be seen in that context.
He said that the malaria map published in Nature shows that in some areas of Latin America, South and South-East Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa, malaria will in fact increase with global warming.
“If I was in a village where malaria went up, it would matter to me and I would want to know why it happened.
“The other problem is that the influence of environmental factors on specific biological mechanisms involved in malaria transmission is still very poorly understood,” Thomas told SciDev.Net.
Thank you Anthony and Goks. The truth will out. You both deserve to split Penn State’s $1.8 million for doing their work for them. Frankly, the grant should have gone to you guys in the first place.
Warmer Is Better – Fight the Ice.
Looking at the industrialized countries doesn’t tell you much since that’s not where the preponderance of malaria occurs. And starting in 2002, the developed world has funded a large anti-malarial program in the underdeveloped world. Yet, in spite of that massive increase in funding, incidences of malaria have been increasing.
In short, malaria incidence is due to many factors. Climate is the major one since it is the best single explanatory factor for incidences of malaria. To not quantify the effect of climate on malaria and dengue would be an act ideological foolishness.
Mann made Malaria. MMM.
@ur momisugly Brad.
Nice to know. Let’s back up in time and correct the critical errors in the chain of events that led to this situation.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldselect/ldeconaf/12/12we21.htm
Professor Paul Reiter, the world recognised expert on vector borne diseases at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, says it all in the above paper.
Mike / Greg Leisner et al.
There is absolutely no evidence that climate has any major influence on malaria transmission (OK, that’s not quite true, malaria has never occurred in extreme arctic areas). Malaria is however NOT a tropical disease. This is well known to anyone familiar with malaria epidemology.
I must say that this rather changes my view of Michael Mann. Up till now I have regarded him as misguided and arrogant, but not evil. However this kind of deliberate obfuscation and waste in connection with one of mankind’s most deadly diseases is close to criminal in my book.
Reminds me of this excellent submission
Memorandum by Professor Paul Reiter, Institut Pasteur; Paris
Select Committee on Economic Affairs Written Evidence
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldselect/ldeconaf/12/12we21.htm
SUMMARY
31 March 2005
I have travelled a bit as a geologist, and have developed a personal loathing for the mosquito, despite the fact that my father flew one during the war. The worst, ie most aggressive and most numerous, I encountered were in the field (beaver lakes and woods) in Newfoundland. These would attack all day and all night, even through thick clothing, especially blue coloured. In the Far East, in India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam, they are potentially dangerous but seemed less aggressive except in the evening and night. Singapore has somehow ethnically cleaned itself of all insect life altogether. In Africa, they are plain dangerous. In the UK I live near marshland in wooded terrain with a year round mosquito infestation. They are a bit sluggish below about 5degC but never absent, and definitely worse in high humidity. The area serously suffered from malaria in the middle ages, but we seem to be free of it at present. Not that we have any eradication programme, as far as I know, unless our magnificent environmental agency has it sorted.
Brad says: “Oil that has entered wetlands may never be able to be removed:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iyCzi7JFE0-cRyBdBUMmDC6Zm9GgD9FS2VR00”
Don’t worry, Brad; it’s an AP article. There’s very little chance that it will turn out to be true.
Greg Leisner says:
May 22, 2010 at 2:13 pm
Malaria is not spread by climate, as in a warm-weather dependant virus.
Malaria is spread by mosquitos that carry it.
You can get B-52’ed by mosquitoes in Alaska, and, in fact, during the Yukon and Klondike Gold Rush days, turn of the 19th century, malaria was common in the Arctic.
Sorry, but you don’t understand just how many varieties of mosquito adapted to darn near every climate imaginable on Earth, that Nature had evolved.
The study Mann has gotten 1.8M for is bogus, and money is being wasted for nothing.
Tom – Paul Reiter said all that in Great Global Warming Swindle and was castigated by the warmists at the time.
If DDT had not been banned worldwide as a result of Rachel Carson’s book there would be no malarial problem.
Let’s make it easy for our American friend – do you remember The Little House on The Prairie? The whole annoying family went down with “Fever ‘n’ Ague” or as we would call it Malaria.
Controlling malaria is all about controlling mosquitos. A degree here or there makes no difference if you don’t get bitten by an infected mossie.
Yellow Fever, the other “tropical disease”, killed 5,000 of Philadelphia’s 45,000 inhabitants in 1793 and caused 17,000 survivors to evacuate the City. http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/7374219
30% of Al Gore’s home state of Tennessee was infected by malaria in 1933. http://www.cdc.gov/malaria/about/history/#
Malaria was endemic throughout the US til 1950. The Center for Disease Control original mission was the eradication of malaria in the US (as well as US military installations) http://www.cdc.gov/malaria/about/history/history_cdc.html
The coldest temperatures ever recorded in the northern hemisphere were in Yukutia Russia: -76.2C in 1926 and -67.7C in 1933. At that time malaria infected 4% of the population. https://oa.doria.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/42319/thedecli.pdf?sequence=1
So successful was DDT and the CDC’s malaria eradication effort that the dread of this disease was purged from our collective memories and DDT repackaged as man’s most evil chemical in less than two decades.
Everyting for the new international order.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/22/AR2010052201586.html