Ebola Broken Record, and Climate Change

I will be updating my ebola cases and fatalities chart in 10 days. Until the worldwide response starts to have some success in lowering the case growth rate, the chart is going more vertical when case rate to time are tabulated. The 550K cases by the end of January 2015 seems unfathomable at present, but unless the trendline is broken..well, it certainly could occur.

This seems a very plausible model of the spread of ebola from East Africa to West africa. I would state that it is the model for the geographical spread of ebola disease, but much more wotk needs to be done before this can be firmly stated.

In related news, there are potentially many as yet unknown 'zoonotic' diseases that either have yet to infect humans, or have been mis-diagnosed--if diagnosed at all. This reminds me of the 'pre-history' of Marburg virus. There were doubtless cases around Mt. Elgon prior to Europeans naming the virus after a load of infected Grivet monkeys caused human infection in Marburg, Germany.

Emerging and re-emerging viruses are likely to be with humans as long as humans and viruses continue to inhabit this blue rock. As the density of humanity continues, and hence moves further into tropical areas with sufficient density to sustain chains of contagion, new and strange maladies are likely to find us a somewhat suitable host.

Okay, enough fun stuff..

MTV affirms climate change and gives one ammunition ro use against climate change deniers. It seems like lots of the same old stuff to me, but it may help others. Perhaps a few months ago I read in the 'comments' section of a good piece on global climate change that the US state of Indiana just went through a very cold winter negating mountains of data supporting climate change. *huge eyeroll*

Climate is a complex issue. For instance, while Arctic sea ice continues to shrink, Antarctic sea ice levels are on the increase. Of course sea ice does not effect sea levels in a really substantive way. Sea ice does affect albedo(reflectivity), but I cannot comment on just how much impact this has on micro-climates or macro-climate. I am curious to know at least some of the mathematical underpinnings, but I have nothing today. In the West Antarctic interior, glacier melt--which most certainly effects sea levels--is in "Catastrophic Collapse".

Read Real Climate. Know Real stuff. Gavin Schmidt knocks down the arguments by analogy in this post. Gavin's Wikipedia Page

I hope to live long enough to see anthropogenic climate change deniers tossed in with moon landing deniers, Holocaust deniers, etc. I am not taking bets.