Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Another day, another bizarre claim about global warming – this time a study which claims that global warming is making our children shorter.
According to a study performed by scientists from [Johns] Hopkins University and Bloomberg School of Medicine;
“El Niño is responsible for natural disasters and infectious disease outbreaks worldwide. During the 1997–1998 El Niño, northern Peru endured extreme rainfall and flooding. Since short stature may occur as a result of undernutrition or repeated infections during childhood, both of which are highly prevalent during natural disasters, we sought to determine if the 1997–1998 El Niño had an adverse effect on stature and body composition a decade later. In 2008–2009, we measured height, weight, and bioimpedance in a random sample of 2,095 children born between 1991 and 2001 in Tumbes, Peru.
Results
Height-for-age increased by 0.09 SD/year of birth between 1991 and 1997 (P < 0.001), indicating overall improvements in health over time in the study area; however, this rate fell to 0.04 SD/year of birth during and shortly after El Niño, less than half the rate prior to El Niño (P = 0.046). Height shortfalls were even greater in children residing in households most likely to be flooded after El Niño. Any improvement over time was completely blunted and became negative in children living in households with flood likelihoods of ≥7% (P = 0.001). In the subset of 912 children with bioimpedance measurements, those born after the onset of El Niño had less lean mass (P < 0.001), whereas fat mass was unaffected (P = 0.48).
Conclusions
”Children born during and after 1997–1998 El Niño were on average shorter and had less lean mass for their age and sex than expected had El Niño not occurred. The effects of El Niño on health are long lasting and, given its cyclical nature, may continue to negatively impact future generations.”
The study: http://www.climatechangeresponses.com/content/1/1/7
Of course, if Peru had a modern, rich, industrial economy, perhaps the Peruvian people could afford enough food, so they wouldn’t suffer nutritional shortages when floodwater messed up the household cabbage patch. But this would require evil infusions of large scale commercial investment – an unlikely prospect, given the local Peruvian political climate.
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bring it on. Tall folks are inefficient, require more resources, bigger vehicles, heftier aircraft seats, more leg room and more food.
The dinosaurs were 1st……and it continues….
“Climate Change” (manmade, of course) is the ultimate scapegoat for all things bad. It’s really no fifferent than how the gods being angry, or witches were blamed for bad things. Even haggis is “threatened”. Some might say good riddance, but still, it’s “threatened”.
Thanks for the “haggis” link. You had me worried. I notice part of the prize for winning the haggis eating contest is a bottle of whiskey – that being about the only thing not (yet) on the ‘warmlist’. Life is good.
Never mind about the relative length of our various appendages.
The really serious item on the block is the impending end of the world
Over at http://www.joannova.com.au the past aus chief scientist(?) Says the world will end on Thursday.
I hope you are not doing aIsything important like me such as golfing.
You left off the “e” in joanne: http://joannenova.com.au/
Sickening idiocy.
Food, protein. Yep, they help make bigger people. That’ll be $67.
Their conclusion smells of ‘post hoc, ergo propter hoc’ argument
The authors cleverly avoided any reference in the paper to actual heights at all. What is 0.05 SD in real money? Let’s say we’re talking about a 100 cm tall child, let’s also say the SD for children of that height is 5 cm; 0.05 SD is 2.5 mm. Is this the order of magnitude change we are talking about?
I guess I know why real heights are never mentioned in the paper. It all makes good work for the academic to do – whatever its real value to society.
I wonder how they dealt with measurement error?
Not to mention the children born prior to the EL Nino event are all past puberty and nearly all full grown. The post El Nino children (1998-2001) are ages 13-16 and are just entering the final stages of growth when children often undergo most of their physical development, especially males. They should have consulted a 6th grade science class to design a proper study.
Actually the post El Nino children were all pre-puberty at the time of the study, which is even worse. The years just prior to puberty are when people grow the least.
It’s interesting the height is presented in hundredths of Standard deviation. Is it so hard to say height is reduced by x amount of inches or centimeters? Is the statistical bubble so intoxicating and heady that having a relationship with reality is no longer necessary?
Yep I get it, get some numbers on some stuff, ignore related factors, ignore specific effects since statistical anomalies are more interesting and come up with some random speculation and conclusions.
Well why would you need that, it would impede jumping to obvious conclusions. Do we really need statistical evidence to show in poor or un-industrialized areas of the globe, children’s health is negatively impacted during times of natural disaster? I do not see how knowing 0.09 SD/year buys those children anything. I hear war zones are not too good for children either. Let’s get some statistics on that.
Contrary to the myopic, this paper does indeed point fingers at climate change which has nothing to do with the negative impacts of natural disasters on children’s health. Otherwise why put it on a website called “ClimateChangeResponse” and explicitly state investigators tie worsening results to climate change in their conclusion? Rhetorical question, no answer needed.
Meanwhile if Climate change affects human height, then Japan is an example of the enormously positive affect climate change has. Sound ridiculous? Well of course, which is why tying the health impacts of natural disasters to climate change is lampooned here.
Using Std. Dev. as a measure seems like an odd choice. In manufacturing anything within +/- 2 SD wasn’t worth looking at, we called it normal variation.
The hard part of science is drawing the conlusions. I see several saying they have done a good job and shouldn’t be put upon by sceptics:
“…to explore the extent to which they are affected to design prevention strategies and target aid and relief during future El Niño episodes.”
Do they actually think it is entirely due to El Nino episodes? It’s due to effects on nutrition due to disasters. Target aid and relief when necessary! They seem unaware that hurricanes are largely spawned during El Ninas and earthquakes, of which Peru has had some of the strongest there are, probably locally, worse than rain.
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/lanina/
” A significant relationship is found between the ENSO cycle and U.S. hurricane losse s, with La Niña years exhibiting much more damage. ”
And the Chimbote and Nasca earthquakes (Feb and Nov 1996) were 7.5 on the Richter scale and were accompanied by substantial damaging Tsunami. Yeah, let’s target all the disasters. Good study as far as it went but still worthy of sceptical criticism.
I grew 2 inches during my sophomore year in college. Had not grown much at all since freshman year of high school. Beer and Jim Beam was what done it. Kids are smoking too much grass and not drinking enough.
I love the smell of desperation in the morning. It smells like….victory.
Keep the inane studies coming alarmists it’s only making our point.
Don’t worry. This particular effect of global warming is limited to Peru. To global Peru.
A certain popular nat. news network that I tend to watch has a health segment and the doc went on and on yesterday about how gullible warming and the link to testicular cancer and the like is very much the cause. Of course I was sitting there watching with my daughter…sigh. Unsure what disturbed me more the casual talk and direct linkage of global warming and mens private parts or just the fact that the resident doc was so convinced and alarmed of it!
If all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail.
He knows about testicles.
And so he talks of such with respect to the climate.
…and the shrinkage begins at the brain hitting the science-related processes and awareness first.
Did I miss the source of their information that natural disasters are increasing I cant really get that from this:
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/pix/user_images/gav/historical_storms/Simplified_TSER_fiveyr_small.gif
Figure 1: Atlantic tropical storms lasting more than 2 days have not increased in number. Storms lasting less than two days have increased sharply, but this is likely due to better observations. Figure adapted from Landsea, Vecchi, Bengtsson and Knutson (2009, J. Climate)
Here’s better perspective:
http://policlimate.com/tropical/global_major_freq.png
ROFLMAO – “…adjusted for missing records…” (AKA: we made this crap up).
That’s it! I am going back to University complete my postgrad studies, and get a grant on my paper: “Male Pattern Baldness-and AGW/Climate change: we’re all going to dieee!!” (But there won’t be any males with hair first muahahah!!)
that sucker ought to be worth a cool half Mil $..
Did they draw this conclusion from a sample size of ONE YEAR (1998)?
Look at the ages of people in their study group. The pre-El Nino group are ages 23-17 and the post El Nino group is 16-13. They were 18-12 and 11-8 years of age respectively at the time of the study. So one group has entered puberty and has entered or finished the final stages of physical maturity whereas the younger group are still mostly pre-puberty and it just so happens that children grow the least just prior to puberty.
I just completely shredded the results of this study apart in 5 minutes but this passed peer-review? Science is being seriously abused these days.
So the Watusi’s in equatorial Africa should be a lot shorter?
Contrary conclusion could be drawn at least in the Netherlands, but also elsewhere http://www.randalolson.com/wp-content/uploads/historical-median-male-height.png.
Wait, I thought that size didn’t matter. So confused.
Just measure in centimeters- You’ll get a bigger number.
stop it you two, you are hard on key boards and I prefer to swallow my beer!
About the only firm conclusion that can be derived from such prat reviewed pseudo science is that due to the internet, an increasingly wide range of the public are becoming aware that a whole section of the science industry has become totally infatuated with it’s own apparent cleverness but is becoming seriously demeaned and debased in the eyes of an increasingly cynical and disillusioned public.
IN australia our kids are getting taller IT must be because we are upside down or maybe eating too many chicken nuggets
My high school basketball team starting lineup my junior year: 6’7″(me), 6’6″, 6’5″, 6’3″, 5’11″….from a rural community population 520 (my graduation class…46). Two other small town schools in our conference didn’t have a single player over 6’1″ on their roster, only one of the nine had a player over 6’3″.
Interesting thing, after my class (4 of the 5 starters listed, the 6’6″ player was a senior) our school only produced 2 more kids over 6’1″, which can probably be partially blamed on shrinking class sizes (I’m 58, so that was a while ago).
Too bad I wasn’t schooled in grant mining…..might have gotten a grant to study why our town’s kids were shrinking…..
Don’t they behead people there too?
Just for the record, I am shorter now than I was in 1996. I also have a bit larger girth. Under the “business as usual” scenario of the IPCC it seems, if my model is correct and I live to 2070, I will be about the shape of a soccer ball. For that and my age, I’ll be famous!
My wife told me I need to get “in shape”. I told her “round is a shape”.
I’m the ‘all-round’ sportsman type.