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Under the weather
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| By: Anita Zimmerman |
September 02, 2009 |
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Autumn leaves give off volatile organic compounds that, when combined with car or industrial emissions, lessen air quality. It’s one way seasonal changes can affect humans.
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Are your hogs crying and running up and down with sticks in their mouths?
Must be a storm coming.
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In his 1926 "Folk Beliefs of the Southern Negro," Newbell Niles Puckett recounts how black Southerners, as well as white English, Scots, Germans and Illinoisans, depended on their animals (and old folks, in one case) for the forecast.
Excited stock, roosters with fits of midnight crowing, distressed pigs and low-flying buzzards were all omens of bad weather. Seven crows flying south indicated a cold snap, and huddling chickens were a sure sign of rain.
While such agrarian forecasting is no longer the norm, it's not unusual to hear elderly relatives complaining about their aching bones. Lending credibility to meteorology-by-body is biometeorology, the study of how weather affects living organisms.
"I don't think it's junk science or an antiquated way of thinking at all, but it is somewhat difficult to study because no two people are alike," says LeAnn Lombardo, a meteorologist at WQOW-TV in Eau Claire.
Although Lombardo doesn't consider herself an expert on biometeorology, she says the classes she took in college convinced her of a correlation.
"Detailed weather records have been kept since the late 1800s. Lay these side by side with criminal or health study reports, and there certainly appears to be a connection," she says.
"Consider how crime rates go up in hot, humid weather," Lombardo points out. "People can't sleep; their activity level is down, they become irritable and more lethargic, which sometimes leads to irresponsible decisions ... There are also those folks who can't function very well without enough sunlight and are diagnosed with SAD, or seasonal affective disorder."
Although animal behaviors are more difficult to gauge (since they can't talk or commit crimes, Lombardo notes), veterinary professionals and farmers can attest to weather-driven changes.
Tishara Worsley, a technician at the Animal Hospital of Chetek, has noticed dogs are sensitive to storms, even when they're too far off for humans to detect.
"When storms are coming, dogs can alert people," she comments.
Among the human species, sufferers of migraines, asthma and other respiratory ailments, heart disease and rheumatism can be more weather-sensitive.
"Many people 'feel it in their bones' when the weather is going to change," Lombardo says. "Their joints hurt, they get a headache or their arthritis flares up. This is typically caused by a change in the air pressure."
Air pressure (or barometric pressure) is the weight of air pressing down on the earth's surface. Joints have air in them, Lombardo explains, and that air doesn't always adjust well to abrupt changes in pressure.
The International Society of Biometeorology, an interdisciplinary organization founded in 1956, includes professionals from more than 100 fields (including biological sciences, health care, meteorology, etc.).
Although it's a young field (compared to astronomy, for example, studied for centuries before Christ lived), biometeorology is picking up proponents as concern over climate change drives research.
"I believe one reason interest in biometeorology will continue to grow is because the average temperature of the earth's atmosphere is increasing (whether it's the result of global warming or just a cyclical cycle), and heat has such a large impact on human life," Lombardo says.
"Everything from droughts, crops, crime, health, etc. will change if the earth's atmosphere continues to warm," she predicts. "Vegetation can also be included in biometeorology since it is also a living matter. Weather affects vegetation and vegetation affects weather (evapotranspiration, albedo, etc.)."
Albedo is how the earth's surface reflects radiation from the sun.
Evapotranspiration is the release of water into the air from lakes, plants, etc.
An estimated 50 percent of people identify themselves as weather-sensitive. The Web site www.globalbioweather.com includes four-day global forecasts for mood, SAD, rheumatic pain, scar pain, sleep, performance and other health effects.
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©The Chetek Alert 2010
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