Commonly, pathogenic disease emerged through alternative triggers (for example, floods, in the example above with salmonellosis) or transmission type (for example, direct contact). Transmission pathway: route by which one climatic hazard (for example, drought), via a transmission type (for example, waterborne), leads to the appearance of a pathogenic disease (for example, salmonellosis). Pathogenic disease: any disorder of structure or function in any organ of the human body caused by an organism (Methods provide additional details). Pathogen: any biological agent, regardless of size or taxa, capable of causing a disease. 1).ĭisease: any disorder of structure or function in any organ of the human body. This figure is intended as a justification for the hazards used and not as a full array of interactions between GHGs and hazards and feedback loops among hazards.Ĭlimate hazard: a climate-related event or trend or their impact on geophysical systems (for example, floods, droughts and sea level rise) that is linked to GHG emissions (paraphrased for brevity from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change AR5 synthesis report 7 Fig. We included (10) changes in natural land cover as one of the hazards because it can be a direct emitter of GHGs via deforestation and respiration, modify temperature via albedo and evapotranspiration and because it can be a direct modifier in the transmission of pathogenic diseases 59, 84. Uptake of CO 2 in the oceans causes ocean acidification, whereas changes in ocean circulation and warming reduces oxygen concentration in seawater these combined ocean physical–chemical changes are referred to as (9) ocean climate change in this paper. Warming of the oceans enhances evaporation and wind speeds, intensifying downpours and the strength of (7) storms, whose surges can be aggravated by (8) sea level rise, which in turn can aggravate the impacts of floods. In moist places, the quick replenishment of evaporation strengthens (5) precipitation, which is prone to cause (6) floods as rain falls on moist places/saturated soils. Drought and heatwaves ripen the conditions for (4) wildfires. Compounded with an increased capacity of the air to hold water, warming accelerates soil water evaporation, leading to (2) drought in places that are commonly dry excess drought can lead to (3) heatwaves when heat transfer from water evaporation ceases. GHGs mediate the balance between incoming solar radiation and outgoing infrared radiation thus, (1) their excess in the atmosphere causes warming. We considered the following ten climate hazards. In this paper, we attempt to fill this gap by applying a systematic approach to screen the literature for the set of interactions in which climatic hazards have been linked to human pathogenic diseases. This failure to integrate available information prevents the quantification of the full threat to humanity posed by climate change as it relates to pathogenic diseases. ![]() Yet, with few exceptions 2, 8, past studies about the impact of climatic hazards on human pathogenic diseases have commonly focused on specific groups of pathogens (for example, bacteria 9, viruses 10), hazards (for example, warming 11, precipitation 12, floods 13) or transmission types (for example, vector- 14, 15, food- 16, waterborne 16, 17). The combination of numerous climatic hazards by the numerous pathogens reveals the potentially large number of interactions in which climatic hazards could aggravate human pathogenic diseases with the set of ‘viable’ interactions, or interactions for which empirical data exists, approximating the full extent of human vulnerability to climate change as it relates to pathogenic diseases. On the other hand, there is a broad taxonomic diversity of human pathogenic diseases (for example, bacteria, viruses, animals, plants, fungi, protozoa and so on), and transmission types (for example, vector-borne, airborne, direct contact and so on glossary in Text Box 1) that can be affected by those hazards. On one hand, it is increasingly recognized that the emission of GHGs has consequences on a multitude of climatic hazards of the Earth’s system (for example, warming, heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, extreme precipitation, floods, sea level rise and so on Fig. While the conclusion that climate change can affect pathogenic diseases is relatively well accepted 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, the extent of human vulnerability to pathogenic diseases affected by climate change is not yet fully quantified. The societal disruption caused by pathogenic diseases, as clearly revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic, provides worrisome glimpses into the potential consequences of looming health crises driven by climate change 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. The ongoing emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) is intensifying numerous climatic hazards of the Earth’s climate system, which in turn can exacerbate human pathogenic diseases 1.
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