John Wheeler: Are some climates healthier than others?

FARGO — We all have our favorite kinds of weather, but is there a certain range of weather conditions that is actually the healthiest? There may not be a good answer to this question. The human body emerged from the African steppe tens of thousands of years ago and promptly adapted to live in Ice Age Eurasia. Since then, humans have settled into every landmass and climate on Earth and have usually done fairly well. We live in climates that are tropical, arctic and everything in between, including the very wet and the very dry.

Certainly, some climates are more suited for human comfort than others, but our highly adaptable bodies and brains can adjust to almost anything. It is not clear that being comfortable has all that much to do with surviving, at least as a species. As our species begins to make plans to inhabit the moon and the planet Mars, it remains to be seen if we will be able to adapt to these vastly different situations.

John Wheeler is Chief Meteorologist for WDAY, a position he has had since May of 1985. Wheeler grew up in the South, in Louisiana and Alabama, and cites his family’s move to the Midwest as important to developing his fascination with weather and climate. Wheeler lived in Wisconsin and Iowa as a teenager. He attended Iowa State University and achieved a B.S. degree in Meteorology in 1984. Wheeler worked about a year at WOI-TV in central Iowa before moving to Fargo and WDAY..