Warmer state could be buggier, sicker

A U.N. panel's new report on climate change comes out next month with a focus on regional effects. Scientists say Minnesota could see new disease-carrying bugs and a major impact on water.

By Bill McAuliffe, Star Tribune

Last update: March 29, 2007 - 11:29 PM

Everybody's heard about melting polar ice caps and rising coastal sea levels. But earlier springs, later autumns and milder winters -- all notable in Minnesota over the past generation -- have also emerged as key symbols of global warming, a panel of scientists said Thursday.

Those factors together could lead to more agricultural production, to the spread of disease and to both the expansion and extinction of some plants and animals, said the three members of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change.

In a telephone news conference Thursday, the three scientists -- two from Harvard and one from the University of Texas -- spoke in advance of the U.N. panel's next report, to be published April 6, which will address regional impacts of climate change.

Their remarks echoed what some Minnesota scientists have been exploring in detail in recent years.

A warming climate will likely enhance the continuing spread of disease-carrying ticks and mosquitoes, said Mike Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.

A warming climate may also accelerate the rate of species change in Minnesota's forests, which Lee Frelich, University of Minnesota forest ecologist, has already detected.

"We think outbreaks of native insects as well as other insects invading will be a major way the forest will change," Frelich said.

Osterholm said he thinks global warming will have its greatest human impact where it reduces water resources, either through evaporation, intensified agricultural uses, pollution or simple increased human population.

"We're not going to see the melting of the poles," Osterholm added. "But we could see some major impact on water, and that's where Minnesotans have to be concerned. Minnesota is all about water."

The release from the Climate Change panel next week will be part of on ongoing refinement of its original report in 1990.

Following next week's report on "Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability," it will release a report on possible mitigations May 4.

Dr. Paul Epstein, associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, said residents of northern climates shouldn't feel relieved by milder winter.

Warmer winters with their mix of ice, fog and widely variable conditions could lead to more injuries in car accidents and falls on ice, he said.

Matt Simcik, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota's School of Public Health, agreed.

"There may be less cold-related stress in winter, but more heat-related stress in summer," he said.

Bill McAuliffe • 612-673-7646 Blog: startribune.com/airmass • mcaul@startribune.com

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