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[Survival of helminth eggs in the wastewater mud in the sludge beds of Chita waterworks].

The species composition, size, and survival of human and domestic animal helminth eggs was determined in the wastewater mud in the sludge beds of the waterworks of Chita. It was shown that when the wastewater mud was little dried in the sludge beds under distinctly continental climatic conditions for three years, their complete disinvasion did not take place. The eggs of seat-worms (Enterobius vermicularis), whipworms (Trichuris trichiura), broad tapeworms (Diphylobotrium latum), and teniae were undetectable in the mud samples after the second and third year of drying. Surviving Ascaris eggs may develop in the soil to the invasion stage under the climatic conditions of Chita, by creating a risk for new infections.

Animals↗
PubMed1986

Are mortality rates for respiratory diseases in the RSA affected by climate?

Age-standardized and age-specific mortality rates (MRs)/100 000 of whites for the pneumonias and chronic respiratory diseases averaged over the 3-year period 1979-1981 for four highveld cities, Johannesburg, Bloemfontein, Pretoria and Germiston, were compared with those for four coastal cities, Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth and East London--Durban being in the subtropics. The highveld cities have cold winter climates with air temperatures falling to freezing point in June and July, whereas the winters are mild in the coastal cities. In Durban, for example, the mean minimum monthly air temperature rarely falls below 10 degrees C in winter. Age-standardized MRs for the pneumonias were negatively associated with the average mean monthly minimum air temperatures in June-July. These rates were much higher in the highveld cities (varying from 63,9/100 000 to 71,4/100 000) than in the coastal cities (varying from 29,8/100 000 to 40,7/100 000). Age-specific MRs in the over-75-year age group in highveld cities were twice as high as the MRs of this age group in the coastal cities. Age-standardized MRs for chronic respiratory diseases, on the other hand, were not associated with winter air temperatures in these eight cities. Age-specific MRs for the over-75-year age group were also not related to the winter air temperatures in the eight cities. This lack of association between MRs for chronic respiratory diseases and winter air temperatures might be due to the confounding effect of air pollution.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1989

[Specific work processes in sailors of the Arctic navy at "ice moorages" and their effect on various body systems].

A complex clinico-physiologic study of the functional state of sailors engaged in loading and discharge works at high latitudes during winter navigation period helped to establish the impact of climatic and occupational processes on the state of cardiovascular, respiratory, central nervous, immune, thermoregulatory and muscular systems of the examined sailors.

Arctic Regions↗
PubMed2004

[Health of workers engaged into mining industry in Siberia and Far North].

Based on longstanding analysis of transitory disablement morbidity among workers engaged into mining industry of Siberia and Far North, the authors defined factors and conditions contributing to health deterioration among these workers. These factors and conditions are severe climate conditions, long exposure to hazards, bad health care, ineffective methods of treatment and prophylaxis.

Arctic Regions↗
PubMed1996

[Characteristics of some Arctic cities according to data of physiologic and hygienic evaluation of the influence of weather and climate on human thermoregulation].

The article presents an original approach to evaluation of climate and weather according to their influence of human heat state. Use of the approach is accompanied by climate characteristics of some Transpolar cities, the authors discuss application of those characteristics to solution of hygienic problems.

Adaptation, Physiological↗
PubMed2001

Closing of the Indonesian seaway as a precursor to east African aridification around 3-4 million years ago.

Global climate change around 3-4 Myr ago is thought to have influenced the evolution of hominids, via the aridification of Africa, and may have been the precursor to Pleistocene glaciation about 2.75 Myr ago. Most explanations of these climatic events involve changes in circulation of the North Atlantic Ocean due to the closing of the Isthmus of Panama. Here we suggest, instead, that closure of the Indonesian seaway 3-4 Myr ago could be responsible for these climate changes, in particular the aridification of Africa. We use simple theory and results from an ocean circulation model to show that the northward displacement of New Guinea, about 5 Myr ago, may have switched the source of flow through Indonesia-from warm South Pacific to relatively cold North Pacific waters. This would have decreased sea surface temperatures in the Indian Ocean, leading to reduced rainfall over eastern Africa. We further suggest that the changes in the equatorial Pacific may have reduced atmospheric heat transport from the tropics to higher latitudes, stimulating global cooling and the eventual growth of ice sheets.

Africa, Eastern↗
PubMed2001

The impact of heat waves and cold spells on mortality rates in the Dutch population.

We conducted the study described in this paper to investigate the impact of ambient temperature on mortality in the Netherlands during 1979-1997, the impact of heat waves and cold spells on mortality in particular, and the possibility of any heat wave- or cold spell-induced forward displacement of mortality. We found a V-like relationship between mortality and temperature, with an optimum temperature value (e.g., average temperature with lowest mortality rate) of 16.5 degrees C for total mortality, cardiovascular mortality, respiratory mortality, and mortality among those [Greater and equal to] 65 year of age. For mortality due to malignant neoplasms and mortality in the youngest age group, the optimum temperatures were 15.5 degrees C and 14.5 degrees C, respectively. For temperatures above the optimum, mortality increased by 0.47, 1.86, 12.82, and 2.72% for malignant neoplasms, cardiovascular disease, respiratory diseases, and total mortality, respectively, for each degree Celsius increase above the optimum in the preceding month. For temperatures below the optimum, mortality increased 0.22, 1.69, 5.15, and 1.37%, respectively, for each degree Celsius decrease below the optimum in the preceding month. Mortality increased significantly during all of the heat waves studied, and the elderly were most effected by extreme heat. The heat waves led to increases in mortality due to all of the selected causes, especially respiratory mortality. Average total excess mortality during the heat waves studied was 12.1%, or 39.8 deaths/day. The average excess mortality during the cold spells was 12.8% or 46.6 deaths/day, which was mostly attributable to the increase in cardiovascular mortality and mortality among the elderly. The results concerning the forward displacement of deaths due to heat waves were not conclusive. We found no cold-induced forward displacement of deaths.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2006

The Arctic in an earth system context: from brake to accelerator of change.

Human activities over the past few centuries have profoundly changed the functioning of the earth system as a whole. These changes are particularly evident in the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, where environmental change has been pronounced and rapid. Such changes have implications beyond the region, as they can lead to two important feedback processes: the ice-albedo feedback and the terrestrial carbon cycle-climate feedback. These processes play an exceptionally important role in earth system functioning, particularly because they may switch this century from damping the effects of anthropogenic climate change to accelerating them. Rapid environmental change in the high latitudes also has consequences for issues of direct importance to humans, particularly water resources.

Animals↗
PubMed1987

Childhood lymphadenitis in a harsh northern climate due to atypical mycobacteria.

Between 1979 and 1983, 16 patients under 15 years of age living within 480 km of Edmonton, Alberta (latitude 53 degrees 34' N) were seen with cervical lymphadenitis caused by atypical mycobacteria. During this period only 4 cases of cervical lymphadenitis from Mycobacterium tuberculosis occurred in the same age and geographical grouping. Young children age 1-4 years accounted for most cases (14/16). The onset showed no seasonal preponderance and the nodal enlargement was either asymptomatic (8/16) or associated with only minor systemic symptoms. M. avium intracellulare scrofulaceum (6 cases) or M. avium intracellulare (4 cases) were identified on cultures from the infected node. In the remaining cases characteristic histopathology and acid fast bacilli were seen on biopsy specimens but no organisms could be cultured. Surgery was employed in all cases either for diagnosis or for therapy. This series demonstrates that atypical mycobacteria may cause childhood lymphadenitis throughout the year in a harsh inland Northern climate. The etiological pathogen can be difficult to culture but complete surgical excision of the infected node is usually curative.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1991

[Clinical and hygienic aspects of the effect of antimony ore on workers in the Far North].

The clinical and hygienic studies performed at the antimonite ore extraction mines in Yakutia revealed that the workers were exposed to high concentrations of polymetallic dusts, containing chromium dioxide, antimony, arsenic and their compounds. 11% of the workers exhibited dust bronchitis, changes in the blood and immune reactivity indices which were due to reactions of adaptation to the Far North climatic conditions and the occupational factors' toxic effects.

Air Pollutants, Occupational↗
PubMed2005

Structure and function of alpine and arctic soil microbial communities.

Cultivation-independent molecular phylogenetic techniques are now widely employed to examine environmental microbial diversity; however, the relationship between microbial community structure and ecosystem function is unclear. This review synthesizes cultivation-independent views of microbiological diversity with our current understanding of nutrient dynamics in alpine and arctic soils. Recently, we have begun to explore connections between microbial community structure and function in soils from the alpine Niwot Ridge LTER site in Colorado, USA, whose ecology has been extensively investigated for over 50 years. We examined the diversity of bacterial, eucaryal, and archaeal small subunit rRNA genes in tundra and talus soils across seasons in the alpine. This work has provided support for spatial and seasonal shifts in specific microbial groups, which correlate well with previously documented transitions in microbial processes. In addition, these preliminary results suggest that the physiologies of certain groups of organisms may scale up to the ecosystem level, providing the basis for testable hypotheses about the function of specific microbes in this system. These studies have also expanded on the known diversity of life, as these soils harbor bacterial and eucaryotic lineages that are distantly related to other known organisms. In contrast to the alpine, microbial diversity in the arctic has been little explored; only three published studies have used molecular techniques to examine these soils. Because of the importance of these systems, particularly to the global C cycle, and their vulnerability to current and impending climate change, the microbial diversity of these soils needs to be further investigated.

Archaea↗
PubMed2004

Variation in xylem structure from tropics to tundra: evidence from vestured pits.

Bordered pits play an important role in permitting water flow among adjacent tracheary elements in flowering plants. Variation in the bordered pit structure is suggested to be adaptive in optimally balancing the conflict between hydraulic efficiency (conductivity) and safety from air entry at the pit membrane (air seeding). The possible function of vestured pits, which are bordered pits with protuberances from the secondary cell wall of the pit chamber, could be increased hydraulic resistance or minimized vulnerability to air seeding. These functional hypotheses have to be harmonized with the notion that the vestured or nonvestured nature of pits contains strong phylogenetic signals (i.e., often characterize large species-rich clades with broad ecological ranges). A literature survey of 11,843 species covering 6,428 genera from diverse climates indicates that the incidence of vestured pits considerably decreases from tropics to tundra. The highest frequencies of vestured pits occur in deserts and tropical seasonal woodlands. Moreover, a distinctly developed network of branched vestures is mainly restricted to warm habitats in both mesic and dry (sub)tropical lowlands, whereas vestures in woody plants from cold and boreal arctic environments are usually minute and simple. A similar survey of the frequency of exclusively scalariform perforation plates illustrates that the major ecological trend of this feature is opposite that of vestured pits. These findings provide previously undescribed insights suggesting that vessels with vestured pits and simple perforation plates function as an efficient hydraulic system in plants growing in warm environments with periodical or continuous drought stress.

Cold Climate↗
PubMed2004

Environmental threats, mitigation strategies and high-mountain areas.

High-mountain areas suffer from increasing environmental threats. The causes are often global in dimension but lead to specific impacts under conditions of steep and/or high-altitude terrain with strong effects from snow and ice. This paper presents a global perspective, focussing primarily on observed and projected changes in climate and then goes on to discuss key messages of greatest relevance to the highest belts of mountain regions. The paper finishes with a brief discussion of mitigation strategies.

Altitude↗
PubMed1997

[Features of work environment in open mining of gold-containing sand in the Far North].

Up-to-date work conditions of open extraction of gold in Far North are characterized by some occupational hazards, among which noise and vibration are leaders. In severe climate conditions heat state of the workers was considered exceeding the allowable standards. The authors suggest recommendations to normalize working environment of the enterprises under study.

Cold Climate↗
PubMed2006

Potential of environmental models to predict meningitis epidemics in Africa.

OBJECTIVES: Meningococcal meningitis is a major public health problem in Africa. This report explores the potential for climate/environmental models to predict the probability of occurrence of meningitis epidemics. METHODS: Time series of meningitis cases by month and district were obtained for Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali and Togo (536 district-years). Environmental information (1989-1999) for the continent [soil and land-cover type, aerosol index, vegetation greenness (NDVI), cold cloud duration (CCD) and rainfall] was used to develop models to predict the incidence of meningitis. Meningitis incidence, dust, rainfall, NDVI and CCD were analysed as anomalies (mean minus observed value). The models were developed using univariate and stepwise multi-variate linear regression. RESULTS: Anomalies in annual meningitis incidence at district level were related to monthly climate anomalies. Significant relationships were found for both estimates of rainfall and dust in the pre-, post- and epidemic season. While present in all land-cover classes these relationships were strongest in savannah areas. CONCLUSIONS: Predicting epidemics of meningitis could be feasible. To fully develop this potential, we require (a) a better understanding of the epidemiological and environmental phenomena underpinning epidemics and how satellite derived climate proxies reflect conditions on the ground and (b) more extensive epidemiological and environmental datasets. Climate forecasting tools capable of predicting climate variables 3-6 months in advance of an epidemic would increase the lead-time available for control strategies. Our increased capacity for data processing; the recent improvements in meningitis surveillance in preparation for the distribution of the impending conjugate vaccines and the development of other early warning systems for epidemic diseases in Africa, favours the creation of these models.

Aerosols↗