Some effects of climate change are direct and fairly obvious:
higher temperatures in the winter; warmer temperatures at higher
elevations; higher sea levels (though this varies from region to
region, as recent research has discovered); acidification of the
ocean as excess CO2 piles up in the atmosphere since geologic
processes can’t operate on the timescale that humans can. Some
effects will come about as a result of two or more other effects
combining: movement of ecosystems poleward and higher in
elevation; extinction of species since they can’t evolve on the
timescale that humans are forcing the climate. One of those
complex effects that aren’t obvious in model output data, for
example, is the future spread of disease. With warmer
temperatures and more water vapor in places that were more
moderate in their pre-21st century climate, new diseases will
become something to watch for. One of those diseases will be
dengue fever. If you haven’t heard of that, you’re not alone.
Dengue fever is a viral, tropical di