Climate and Environment
An environment is a complex of surrounding circumstances, conditions, or influences in which a thing is situated or is developed, or in which a person or organism lives, modifying and determining its life or character. The environment of an organism includes both physical properties, which can be described as the sum of local abiotic factors such as insolation (sunlight), climate, and geology, and biotic factors, which are other organisms that share its habitat.
Natural environment is thus the result from interactions between : atmosphere, ecosystems (including vegetation), and water.
Climate is the average and variations of weather in a region over long periods and of time. It is the result of interactions between its five components or spheres : Atmosphere , Hydrosphere, Cryosphere, Biosphere, Lithosphere
Climate displays natural and anthropogenic oscillations. The natural oscillations include the Milankovitch Cycles, the multidecadal (sometimes called pentadecadal), the interdecadal, the quasi-decadal, the interannual (mainly ENSO, i.e., El Nino and La Nina), the quasi-biennial, the seasonal, the intraseasonal, the diurnal oscillations. The anthropogenic oscillations are mainly from extra production of greenhouse gases and can lead to climate change.
Climate oscillations and signals may affect vectorborne diseases (mosquitoes, flies,ticks, phlebotomes...) by influencing the reproductive success of the vectors and by altering incubation periods.
For example, warmer air temperatures shorten the time needed for the virus responsible for Dengue fever to become activated within its mosquito host. On the other hand, hot temperatures can also reduce the survival of mosquitoes and ticks.
Warmer oceans conditions correlate with increased populations of some micro-organisms associated with waterborne diseases, such as the Vibrio cholerae bacterium, which causes cholera. In addition, rainfall and flooding (which result in the watery habitats optimal for certain disease vectors and micro-organisms) and runoff (which can transport pathogens from the feces of infected pasture animals) may also cause increased transmission of diseases among humans.
Some airborne diseases are believed to be affected by climate and weather conditions, as evidenced by their seasonal nature. For example, meningococcal meningitis (spinal meningitis) occurs in sub-Saharan Africa most frequently during the dry season from December through June