From Arizona State University where I really don’t think they understand that warmer winters aren’t necessarily a product of “climate change” but are mostly weather pattern and ocean cycle pattern driven. Then there’s the recent study about waste heat where the researchers found:
“…the extra heat given off by Northern Hemisphere urban areas causes as much as 1 degree C (1.8 degrees F) of warming in winter.”
So, color me unconvinced that “climate change” is the real driver here. It is more like a convenient scapegoat.
Study shows climate change could affect onset and severity of flu seasons
The American public can expect to add earlier and more severe flu seasons to the fallout from climate change, according to a research study published online Jan. 28 in PLOS Currents: Influenza.
A team of scientists led by Sherry Towers, research professor in the Mathematical, Computational and Modeling Sciences Center at Arizona State University, studied waves of influenza and climate patterns in the U.S. from the 1997-1998 season to the present.
The team’s analysis, which used Centers for Disease Control data, indicates a pattern for both A and B strains: warm winters are usually followed by heavy flu seasons.
“It appears that fewer people contract influenza during warm winters, and this causes a major portion of the population to remain vulnerable into the next season, causing an early and strong emergence,” says Towers. “And when a flu season begins exceptionally early, much of the population has not had a chance to get vaccinated, potentially making that flu season even worse.”
The current flu season, which is still in high gear in parts of the nation, began early and fiercely. It followed a relatively light 2011 season, which saw the lowest peak of flu since tracking efforts went into effect, and coincided with the fourth warmest winter on record. According to previous studies, flu transmission decreases in warm or humid conditions.
If global warming continues, warm winters will become more common, and the impact of flu will likely be more heavily felt, say the study’s authors.
Mathematical epidemiologist Gerardo Chowell-Puente, an associate professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, adds that the findings could inform preparedness efforts following mild winters: “The expedited manufacture and distribution of vaccines and aggressive vaccination programs could significantly diminish the severity of future influenza epidemics.”
This study was partially supported by the Multinational Influenza Seasonal Mortality Study, overseen by the National Institutes of Health’s Fogarty International Center. Other team members are Rasheed Hameed, Matthew Jastrebski, Maryam Khan, Jonathan Meeks, Anuj Mubayi and George Harris of Northeastern Illinois University. The goal of the overarching study is to better grasp the character and trajectory of influenza in all its forms.
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John, very true about the deadliness of tiny human disease spreaders. Something ought to be done about them.
Meanwhile, this is also true: ““The IPCC’s claim is that they are 90 percent sure that humans have ‘contributed to’ the observed warming.”
Heck, if I sit here and scratch my butt it’s an inescapable scientific fact that the friction I have created by that action has contributed to anthropogenic global warming.
– MJM, the butt-scratcher
It seems to me that a larger population, better heated houses and more industrial plants must create a temperature rise especially in the winter without any CO2 as a possible driver. The size of the overall change (climate, temperature, whatever you call it) due to this cause must be difficult to assess but some part of it will appear as a local effect close to major population centers increasing throughout the last 100 years (just as Anthony so ably has shown).
I am applying for funding using the hypothesis that I have more bogers up my nose due to climate change, using “1997-1998 season to the present.” Mainly so I can ignore winter years such as 1968/9 and as I wasn’t born making my theory undisputable. Anyone accusing me of cherry picking may be executed for climate denialism and for the heinous crime of threatening my source of income.
In my next project I will be looking at stealing candy from a baby and blaming it on climate change
/sarc
Ginger wrote, “I am applying for funding using the hypothesis that I have more bogers up my nose due to climate change, … Anyone accusing me of cherry picking may be executed for climate denialism and for the heinous crime of threatening my source of income.”
Ginger, cherry-picking is allowed. Boger-picking is not. Please report to the Principal’s office immediately.
– MJM
The only thing ‘weather’ related about the flu is that is is carried by migratory birds. “”
I think some of those birds are named B747 and A380 etc.
They should speak to their buddies at Georgia Tech : Cloud forming bacteria?
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/01/cloud-forming-bacteria/
Well the BBC did a documentary on flu epidemics last night. This year the norovirus has been the big problem. The spike was much earlier, and the biggest factor in spreading flu are the dates that the schools open and close, which even for the BBC sounded plausible. The peaks build up just after schools open, and dampen down when schools close for holiday.
Perhaps this another good reason for warmists and environmentalists to hate children
It is known in Finland that we have more flu during cold winters. People are then crowding more close together in public transports. May be the PLOS authors have not thought of this causation because of modelling.
Pol Pot and Mao Tse Tung were right. Take these so called academics out into the fields and give them something useful to do.
Ivor Ward.
C’mon people, researchers gotta research, and that costs money. If the climate change money spigot is flowing most freely that’s where the researchers will go. The bargain they make is they gotta give a climate change angle to whatever they publish. I know of a project to develop some graphics software that got funding from a sanitation department by pretending they wanted to map the sewers. They didn’t; they wanted to develop graphics software. No map was ever produced but some keen old software got written.
Personally, whenever I see “could” in the title of a climate-related paper I nod and think, yep, you held up your end of the bargain but you don’t believe this is climate related any more than I do.
“Could” is a code word. It’s like seeing the word “drink” after “fruit juice”, or “food” after “cheese”. It’s there tell you the paper has been adulterated for commercial reasons.
But we were told to expect colder winters as the Arctic ice declines. If warm winters continue??? Tell that to the Europeans who have in recent years been seeing that thing of the past. I’m just wondering that if indeed warmer winters is the result of AGW then how many lives would be saved?
Cold also kills
michaeljmcfadden says:
January 29, 2013 at 12:06 am
“Heck, if I sit here and scratch my butt it’s an inescapable scientific fact that the friction I have created by that action has contributed to anthropogenic global warming.”
Please scratch you butt a bit more vigorously. I’ve got a slight fever and the sniffles.
John F. Hultquist says:
January 28, 2013 at 11:21 pm
Breaking News:
See:
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/01/28/un-climate-report-models-overestimated-global-warming/
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Looks like a bit of controlled opposition to me.
However at least skeptics are finally making the news.
Jason Calley says:
January 28, 2013 at 11:35 pm
When it is colder, people stay indoors more, and when they do go outside, they cover up more. Maybe flu is more easily caught by people who have less sun exposure and hence less vitamin D.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
Do not forget to add a lack of humidity. Colder temperatures mean the indoor air is a lot dryer.
Researchers have long puzzled over why flu becomes so much more active in winter. A new study reveals that dry air is one likely culprit.
You might want to include this study at the top of the page Anthony.
These people make an excellent case for the naming of the flu epidemic, the spanish flu, bird flu , swine flu and now we need to alarm every one that the next epidemic is caused by climate change.
It would be appropriate at this time to have a naming contest, for the next great scare I will start the ball rolling.
Hansonitic Flubia
Mannanitis Flubious
IPCCitis epidemic
BOMonic plague
It would seem we have suffered these already any one have a clue of our next plague we have to endure
In the UK we are able to get immunized against the flue virus. Unfortunately it works against last year’s virus not the current one. The flue virus is probably the most active virus at mutation. The current year’s might be less or more virulent than the last and only the first case can tell.
That study about urban heat altering climate 1000 miles away was total rubbish.
In Childcare I get sneezed on every day, and exposed to copious amounts of mucus and worse, and my understanding is that studies shows hand-washing over and over and over is the only thing that truly makes a difference.
The ‘flu came early to New Hampshire this year, and the ‘flu shot didn’t seem to help much. Therefore some local folk have decided we bred our own strain, which is spreading out across the world, and we deserve either blame or credit, (depending on your feelings about population control.) At the very least it should get a name like “The Hong Kong ‘Flu.” Perhaps “The Granite State Grippe.”
Gail Combs says:
January 29, 2013 at 2:37 am
You might want to take a closer look at wide spread vitamin D deficiency during the winter for cold and flu. It doesn’t look like humidity has anything to do with flu or cold (lived in Houston). Once I found out about vitamin D deficiency that made it much more likely to catch cold or flu, I started taking the right amount based on body weight 4 years ago, it worked much better than anything I’ve tried. http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/infections-and-autoimmunity/influenza/
Rule of thumb for the dosage – 1000IU for every 25lbs of bodyweight.
Guess what the daily recommendation is? 600IU…
Guess how much you get from the sun during the summer at midday without sunblock lotion? 10,000-20,000 IU for people with light colored skin after 15-30 minutes. The darker the skin is, the longer sun exposure it gets to get same amount of vitamin D. (Be smart about the amount of sun exposure though but apparently you tan faster with high vitamin D blood level which is strange)
It’s not really a vitamin D but a pre-hormone that your body converts to powerful hormone called calcitriol. It’s often referred as DNA/genetic repair and maintenance by vitamin D experts.
Sun Scare belongs to trash along with CAGW…
Why would the drivers for increased flu be very similar to the common cold? Colder temps result in increased crowding in less ventilated spaces, decreased resistance(?) due to exposure to the cold and drier air allowing droplets containing the virus to remain intact. We catch colds in the winter. We can catch our death by getting cold and wet. Seems to me that this “research” isn’t much more than recycling what we already “know” and packaging it as climate change.
Air borne viruses live longer at lower temperatures.
Consequently, warmer winters have a tendency to have lower numbers of flu victims.
That’s logical. The conclusion of this study about the myth of CAGW causing warmer winters and therefore more flu victims is complete and utter BS – typical alarmist nonsense.
History starts in 1997? Let’s see the graph for the influenza outbreak of 1918 which killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide.
Interesting quote: “It is an oddity of history that the influenza epidemic of 1918 has been overlooked in the teaching of American history. Documentation of the disease is ample, as shown in the records selected from the holdings of the National Archives regional archives. Exhibiting these documents helps the epidemic take its rightful place as a major disaster in world history.”
from: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/influenza-epidemic/
Follow up to my post above:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Spanish_flu_death_chart.png
This is another correlational study that attempts to show causation. In a stats class years ago we learned that homicide rates are correlated with how nice the weather is: more homicides in the warmer days of summer than other colder seasons. The explanation was because in the summer there are more people out and about interacting with each other and not because the warm weather drives people to murder. Maybe the same effect is going on here. Warmer winters have more people going out and interacting with each other. I know the amount of traffic on my sleepy little road is dramatically higher on warmer days than on very cold and/or rainy days.
Although I doubt warmer weather is coming anytime soon, I also doubt that catching the flu is such a catastrophe it should be treated as a public-health casus belli, like polio: It’s been known for 100 years that a severe fever, such as one might experience with a really bad strain of the flu, can cure terminal cancer.
John F. Hultquist says:
January 28, 2013 at 11:11 pm
Stay away from groups of people, especially little ones, classrooms, and public school teachers. Get the shot, early. Also get the Pneumonia shot.
~~~~~~~
John, most of the people I know that DID get the flu shot also got the fl\u. Most fo the people that I know that did NOT getthe flu shot, likewise, did not get the flu. Are you suggesting we all need to get flu shots so we can be sick and make the medical professionals more wealthy?
As an Arizonan, I am very much disappointed in this sort of flimsy research.
Am I correct in thinking that “Liberal Sciences” do not require empirical evidence?