tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6448259913624206180.post3924358381269240734..comments2023-11-29T07:06:55.168-05:00Comments on Central Pennsylvania Forestry: Increase of Lyme disease cases can be linked to climate changeDavid R. Jacksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10274227503840900875noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6448259913624206180.post-46131993451892962352016-08-01T11:23:47.703-04:002016-08-01T11:23:47.703-04:00This article addresses an interesting topic and ha...This article addresses an interesting topic and has so much food for thought that it is difficult to pass up an opportunity to comment. While being intuitively pleasing, it contains information that makes the conclusions less than scientifically rigorous.<br /><br />My personal experience with deer ticks covers the period from the late 1940s, when I first started hunting, to the present. Geographically, it relates to the high country near State Game Land 60 at the Allegheny Front .<br /><br />I don’t recall ever seeing a tick of any kind on a harvested deer until the late 1970s, and they then became more common and are taken for granted in deer killed today. Most of us intuitively attributed the increase to warmer weather patterns, although this was purely a “gut feel” instead of any scientific analysis. Also, we had some winters that were extremely cold, with no apparent effect on the prevalence of ticks.<br /><br />When drawing conclusions relating the increase of Lyme Disease to climate change, we need to be careful to avoid what the statisticians call “spurious correlations.” Simply defined, a spurious correlation occurs when one of two events happening at the same time seems to be caused by the other; when in fact both are unrelated. Also, as the article states, improved diagnostic and reporting methods need to be taken into account.<br /><br />Other events that happened in my geographical area during the same time span were:<br /><br />An increase in the black bear population from zero to significant numbers today.<br /><br />The migration of coyotes to the area and a decline of the fox population to near zero.<br /><br />Gypsy moths invading the area.<br /><br />Rattlesnakes becoming more numerous.<br /><br />Most recently, Chronic Wasting Disease coming closer.<br /><br />From the point of view of scientific analysis, we need to be careful about how we determine the causes of each of these events. All possibilities should be considered and uncertainties need to be presented.<br /><br />A final comment about uncertainty related to climate change. A lot of significance is attached to a temperature rise of 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit over a period of 100 years. Recognizing that the Earth’s climate and weather consist of highly complex and always varying combinations of thermodynamic and gas dynamic processes, this temperature change should be measured from absolute zero. This is the standard reference point for analysis and computations in these sciences.<br /><br />Using the Rankine scale, absolute zero is minus 460 degrees Fahrenheit. A “standard day” of 60 degrees Fahrenheit at sea level is then 520 degrees Rankine. A “climate change” increase of 1.8 degrees results in the standard day rising to 521.8 degrees Rankine, or an increase of 0.346 percent. <br /><br />It is difficult for an old engineer like I am to get excited over an increase of 0.346 percent over 100 years. If plotted by hand on a scale starting at zero, the change would be lost in the width of a pencil point.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com