Feature Article

Several studies have investigated the association between asthma exacerbations and exposures to ambient temperature and precipitation. However, limited data exists regarding how extreme events, projected to grow in frequency, intensity, and duration in the future in response to our changing climate, will impact the risk of hospitalization for asthma. The objective of our study was to quantify the association between frequency of extreme heat and precipitation events and increased risk of hospitalization for asthma in Maryland between 2000 and 2012.

Agriculture and food production are responsible for a substantial proportion of greenhouse gas emissions. An emission based food tax has been proposed as one option to reduce food related emissions. This study introduces a method to measure the impacts of emission based food taxes at a household level which involves the use of data augmentation to account for the fact that the data record purchases and not consumption. The method is applied to determine the distributional and nutritional impacts of an emission based food tax across socio-economic classes in the UK.

Prenatal exposure to ambient PM2.5, (i.e., fine particulate matter) has been associated with preterm birth and low birth weight. The association between prenatal PM2.5 exposure and intrauterine inflammation (IUI), an important risk factor for preterm birth and neurodevelopmental outcomes, has not been evaluated. The researchers aimed to investigate the association between maternal exposure to PM2.5 and IUI in the Boston Birth Cohort (BBC), a predominantly urban low-income minority population.

Inception of agriculture has witnessed the pivotal role of women in perceiving how seeds sprouted and grew into plants. Since the birth of farming, women have been the backbone of the agricultural work force. Today, they represent 43% of the global agricultural labour force. There has been 24% increase in the number of female agricultural labourers1 , from 49.5 million in 2001 to 61.6 million in 2011. (Correspondence)

Original Source

Following strong westerly wind bursts in boreal winter and spring of 2014, both the scientific community and the popular press were abuzz with the possibility of a major El Niño developing. However, during the boreal summer of 2014, the Bjerknes feedback failed to kick in, aided and abetted by a strong easterly wind burst. The widely anticipated major 2014-5 El Niño event failed to materialize and even failed to qualify as an El Niño by conventional definitions.

In this study, the effects of cattle grazing intensity on soil nitrous oxide (N2O) fluxes were examined in the Hulunber meadow steppe of north-eastern China. Six stocking-rate treatments (0, 0.23, 0.34, 0.46, 0.69, and 0.92 AU ha−1) with three replicates were established, and observations were conducted from 2010 to 2014. Our results showed that substantial temporal fluctuations in N2O flux occurred amongst the different grazing intensities, with peak N2O fluxes after natural rainfall. Grazing had a long-term effect on the soil N2O flux in the grasslands.

The mosquito Aedes (Ae). aegypti transmits the viruses that cause dengue, chikungunya, Zika and yellow fever. We investigate how choosing alternate emissions and/or socioeconomic pathways may modulate future human exposure to Ae. aegypti. Occurrence patterns for Ae. aegypti for 2061–2080 are mapped globally using empirically downscaled air temperature and precipitation projections from the Community Earth System Model, for the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios.

The unfolding story of Zika virus in the Americas is much more than a mosquito-borne disease that may affect fetal development. It is the story of a disease that exposed problems and raised challenges that the affected health systems and governments cannot ignore. Next, based largely on lessons provided by Brazil’s Zika epidemic, we discuss five critical problems and challenges and reflect on opportunities to remedy them. 

Original Source

Global environmental change is rapidly altering the dynamics of terrestrial vegetation, with consequences for the functioning of the Earth system and provision of ecosystem services1, 2. Yet how global vegetation is responding to the changing environment is not well established. Here we use three long-term satellite leaf area index (LAI) records and ten global ecosystem models to investigate four key drivers of LAI trends during 1982–2009.

In this study, we evaluate the potential impact of ground level ozone (O3) on rice and wheat yield in top 10 states in India during 2005. This study is based on simulated hourly O3 concentration from the Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem), district-wise seasonal crop production datasets and accumulated daytime hourly O3 concentration over a threshold of 40 ppbv (AOT40) indices to estimate crop yield damage resulting from ambient O3 exposure.