Relevance of your research question:
There has been some research done on the relationship between global warming and the spread of disease. The correlation between the two has been that a rise in sea surface temperature (SST) and/or a rise in sea surface height (SSH) in a given area has occurred shortly before or during a high increase in the number of people infected with cholera (Colwell, Science, 20 December 1996). Also, remote sensing applications have been used to help detect regions where the bacterium Vibrio cholerae is present (Lobitz, PNAS, 15 February 2000). Remote sensing is used to find phytoplankton blooms in the ocean. These blooms can be found with zooplankton blooms (copepods) where the bacterium attaches itself. This method has proven to be good because it helps bacteriologists to zoom in on places where cholera may be present. In the past, the bacterium Vibrio cholrae has been detected by means of random water sampling, a practice that is expensive, time consuming, and frequently produces data that too sparse for a given geographical area. Further study of the ocean through measuring SST and SSH and the use of the remote sensing and improving these techniques may prove to be invaluable in predicting future outbreaks of infectious diseases.
Materials and Methods:
At the start of this project, I was hoping I would find abundant numerical data on sea surface temperature and height changes, precipitation data, salinity changes, and nutrients found in the ocean where cholera and malaria outbreaks occurred. I thought that these would be good proxies for global warming. However, in all of the research materials I have collected so far, any numerical data that was used has already been converted into graphs. I am still on the look for raw data that I can use to make my own conclusions. Ultimately, I would like to conduct some sort of analysis to find out whether or not global warming is responsible to the spread of disease. Perhaps there is something more that is causing the spread of infectious diseases, such as ideal conditions for the survival of bacteria (ideal salinity of ocean water or abundant amounts of nutrients) or geographical issues (lack of sanitation, rise in rate of population growth, human migration). Although these possibilities go beyond the scope of this project, they may be worth mentioning if the connection between global warming and the spread of disease is not as strong as I had hoped.
Next Article
Previous Article
Return to the Topic Menu
IMPORTANT: For each Response, make sure the title of the response is different than previous titles shown above!
Weather & Other Cool Stuff! |
Discovery Labs |
Tropical Ecosystems Courses |
Return Home |
Field Course Research |
Earth Science Resources |