4 ms·
It's really not a big stretch. We know that: * this disease is born by insects * the insects don't live in places that get too cold for them * we witness the
by sophacles 3y ago
It's really not a big stretch. We know that:
* this disease is born by insects
* the insects don't live in places that get too cold for them
* we witness the insects spreading into places that used to be too cold for them as the average temperature changes.
I don't see how "if the models are right and it gets warmer then the facts above will continue to apply in those areas" is somehow shocking or even dubious.
Over the summer we saw new cases of malaria contracted in the US too, for the same reasons: it got warm enough in parts of the south to support the right type of mosquito.
- lainga 3y agoPlease see my other comment. I will explain my original comment. In the first case, climate models don't usually do that. You couple them to biological models that predict habitat expansion or contraction. (I think this is probably what the authors meant.) In the second case, well, it's not exactly an extraordinary finding, which would make it absurd to put in the article except in the spirit of Carthago delenda est. Being involved in climate discourse does not have to be a humourless exercise. P.S. non-anthropogenic biology does play a part in climate models (and the climate!), but over a much, much longer timescale. Think chalk cliffs and the Great Oxygenation Event.