Study in journal Nature: ‘Global warming risks dehydrating and inflaming human airways’ – Using ‘climate model simulations…suggest that most of USA will be at elevated risk of airway inflammation’

Global warming increases water evaporation rates from planetary ecosystems. Here, we show that evaporation rates encountered during human breathing in dehydrating atmospheres promote airway inflammation and potentially exacerbate lung diseases. Continuum mathematical analysis predicts that water evaporation thins airway mucus layers and compresses epithelial cells during tidal breathing. Experiments using human tracheal-bronchial cells confirm that exposure to air with progressive degrees of dryness (relative humidities of 95%, 60%, and 30% at 37 °C) causes the mucus layer to progressively thin (by 5%, 35%, and 58%). Associated compression of epithelial cells elevates secretion of inflammatory cytokines (TNF-α, IL-33, and IL-6). Exposing mice with a muco-inflammatory phenotype to intermittent dry air for 14 days results in histopathological changes and alteration of inflammatory infiltrates. Together with climate model simulations, these findings suggest that most of the United States will be at elevated risk of airway inflammation by the latter half of this century.

AGAIN not surprising the magic of the hypothetical IMPACTS was created by the most extreme and impossible scenarios for the future …

Rising VPD with global warming increases human airway inflammation risk

Given our theoretical and experimental findings, we sought to assess the increased risk of breathing-induced inflammation of human airways as a consequence of rising VPD accompanying global temperature increase by performing a land-only simulation for the continental US. We conducted a 40-year historical experiment (1980–2019, called Recent Past) and future experiment (2060–2099, called Late 21st century) under the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 scenario28 (see Methods). Our findings are shown in Fig. 5.

Acknowledgements