Wrong, USA Today, Climate Change Isn’t Worsening Dengue Fever
By
Linnea Lueken
November 20, 2024
A recent post at USA Today, “Dengue fever spiked to record levels in 2024: Climate change will make it even worse,” claims that global warming has already led to a spike in dengue fever, and will lead to further increases of the disease as warming continues. This claim is likely false. No data supports the claim, rather the climate change impact on Dengue fever, as with other vector-borne diseases, is in the realm of theory, relying heavily on counterfactual computer modelling.
USA Today reports that there has been an increase in the number of infections from dengue fever, “three times the number of cases in 2023, which was record-setting at the time.” The report relies heavily on a study published in medRxiv “Climate warming is expanding dengue burden in the Americas and Asia,” which claims to have found that climate change caused the vector-borne illness’ spread as temperatures have risen. This study can be categorized as largely an attribution study with a little real medical data thrown in. However, like all climate attribution studies, it presumes that climate change would have an impact on the spread of dengue and other vector-borne illnesses, and relies on the sixth generation climate models (CMIP6) that are known to be flawed because they run too hot.
The study authors admit that their method is an expansion of the kind of work done by other attribution groups, “it is among the first studies to attribute changes in infectious disease to climate change—expanding on the attribution literature centered on more direct effects such as heat waves, storms, and fires—providing a road map for future studies on other ecological and health impacts.” This is notable, because those other attribution studies are deeply flawed and do not reflect reality, as Climate Realism has repeatedly shown.
https://climaterealism.com/2024/11/wrong-usa-today-climate-change-isnt-worsening-dengue-fever/
