When the Poles Change, So Does Our Health

Climate change isn’t just about melting ice or rising seas—it’s also about human health. The warming of the polar regions (Arctic and Antarctic) is not isolated but rather the effects of the warming cause a ripple effect that affects all persons in all places. The article clarifies that it is not only that melting ice, thawing permafrost, and acidifying oceans are damaging wildlife but also augmenting illnesses, food scarcity, and severe weather, which may result in morbidity or even fatalities among individuals (1^✔ ✔Trusted Source
A framework for assessing global health impacts of polar change: An urgent call for interdisciplinary research

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What’s Happening at the Poles

The Arctic warms four times rapidly than the rest of the world and the Antarctic approximately twice as rapidly. This rapid change triggers:

• Thawing ice sheets and ice caps, elevating the sea level.
• Melting permafrost, leaching toxins and archaic microbes.
• Heating and acidifying the sea, killing marine life.
• The extremes of heat, cold, floods, and wild fires that rock the world are caused by changes in the jet streams and ocean currents.

These physical transformations contribute to more warming, pollution and spread of diseases.

How Polar Change Affects Health

Regional (Arctic) Impacts

• Direct effects: Collapsing roads, floodings, soil-thawing pollution as well as viruses and chemicals release are dangerous.
• Indirect effects: Indigenous populations are impacted through the loss of traditional food sources, mental distress, and new insect-borne diseases that have health and culture implications on the Indigenous population.

Global Direct Effect

• The rise in sea level pollutes drinking water, promotes chronic illnesses, and contributes to food shortages.
• Violent weather (storms, floods, droughts) causes injuries, infections, problems with pregnancy, and deaths.
High temperatures and low temperatures initiate heart and kidney disorders, mental disorders and loss of sleep.

Global Indirect Effects

• Vector-borne diseases: Warming allows the entry of mosquitoes and ticks into new habitats that cause diseases such as malaria and dengue.
• Water born illnesses: Floods and drought decrease supply of food and lead to epidemics such as cholera.
• Mental health: Disasters, heat stress, and displacement cause the anxiety, depression, and trauma.

Building a Health Framework

Scientists developed a model to connect the polar physical changes to the direct and indirect global health hazards, and they called for interdisciplinary collaboration between climate science, health, and policy. They point out that the present health research is usually compartmentalized and lacks the bigger picture – how polar change relates to the global well-being. Polar data can be incorporated in the health systems to enhance early alerts and inform better policies.

Polar changes do not just exist in distant lands but they are potent forces behind global health tragedies. Their consequences are already affecting our future, be it sea floods or novel diseases. The article calls on collective action- connecting science, policy, and population health- to create a safer, healthier, and more resilient world.

References:

1. A framework for assessing global health impacts of polar change: An urgent call for interdisciplinary research- (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13280-025-02255-0/)

Source-Springer