Transcript weather and climate - Southeast Regional Climate Center

Climate & Health: A Toolkit?
Peter J Robinson
Department of Geography
Southeast Regional Climate Center
University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill
Climate & Health: Background
• Multitudinous Links
– Few well established
– Most probably complex
– Climate not always dominant driver
• Emerging Public Awareness
– Public Health Awareness Week
– Increasing information needs
– Climate predictions required
Objective
• Develop a climate-health impact toolkit
– Simple set of broadly applicable techniques
• Match tool (types) to impact (types)
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help understand science behind links
help respond to likely impacts
help with predictions
foster rapid (preliminary) response to user needs
• to emerging questions/new threats
Approach: Case study based
• Review known climate-health links
– Limited range
• Incorporate other possible methods
– Draw on all aspects of applied climatology
• Suggest new approaches
– Literature review
– Personal interactions
– Graduate student input
Ambient Exposure
• Heat wave
– Temperature, humidity, radiation
– Heat Stress
– Rapid health response
• UV exposure
– Sunlight intensity, atmospheric transfer
– Melanoma
– Cumulative dosage response
Heat Wave – Heat Stress
• Biophysical model
– Temperature, humidity, radiation, wind….
• Impact vs climate correlation
– Measurements, practicality
• Index development
– Applicability, understandability
• Regional Analysis
– Time series, thresholds
• Forecasting
Heat Index Application
• Heat Stress Index – a simplification
– U.S: Tmax, Tmin, humidity, duration
• Thresholds variable across nation
• Not time dependent
– Europe: Tmax, duration
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Simple to use
Seemingly regarded as static
Applied to the variety of climates
Cultural adaptation?
Ambient Exposure
• Heat wave
– Temperature, humidity, radiation
– Heat Stress
– Rapid health response
• UV exposure
– Sunlight intensity, atmospheric transfer
– Melanoma
– Cumulative dosage response
UV Exposure
• Culturophysical Model
– Intensity/Quality + exposure time
– Social “estimation” of times
• Accuracy vs Complexity
– Too complex to use
• Ability to test
– Time to accumulate too long
• Validity of basic method?
Transport - Diffusion
• Air pollution
– Various well-established applications
• Ozone & Particulate Matter
– Longer transport time
– Synoptic approach
• Indoor- Outdoor: Flu
– (Bio)physical transport model
– Jet stream or Jet plane?
Air Pollution
• Clear target
– Air pollution = generalized health/diseases
• Plume dispersion models
– Well established
– Refinements for topography….
• Specific Impacts?
– Length/Amount of exposure
Ozone & Particulate Matter
• Longer transport time
– Potentially broader dispersion
• Analyze like heat stress?
– Point data misleading
• Synoptic approach
– Upwind trajectory?
– Speed of movement?
Charlotte NC Ozone vs Air Mass
Indoor-Outdoor Air: Flu
• More flu in winter
– Seasonal = climate connection?
– Viral diffusion process
• Means of diffusion
– Jet stream or Jet plane?
• (Bio)physical transport model
– Viral survival and transport
– Scale of flu diffusion problem
Weather and Influenza: What Do We Know?
 Cold air
 Virus is stable (remains active)
 Breathing cold air increases respiratory clearance
 More time spent indoors decreases melatonin and Vitamin D
 Dry air
 Virus decays at a slower rate
 Virus remains suspended in the air
 Evaporation decreases size of bioaerosol to that favorable for infection
in the lower respiratory tract
 Wind
 Bioaerosols that settle can be “kicked-up” by gusty winds
 Increased transport and residence time in the air
Regional Shifts
• Long-term Changes
– Climate Change
– Outside historical record length
• Wide area Variations
– Downscale from models
– Upscale from observations
Malarial Regional Shifts
• Temperature trends
– Warm areas advance poleward
– Suitable seasons for malarial mosquitos?
– Impacts inferred from Malarial Atlas Project?
• Surface water changes
– Known role of standing water in dry areas
– Will warm areas get sufficiently wet?
– Will seasonality influence mosquitos?
Climate – Malaria Links
• Seasonality of changed climate?
– Downscale model results
– Link to synoptics
– Add temporal variability as random process?
• Response of mosquitos/parasites
– Lifecycles under non-tropical conditions?
• Response to Urbanization
– Representative of external factors
Summary of Tools
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Statistical climatology models
Synoptic Climatology approaches
Customized biophysical models
General climate models
• Ability to interlink tools
• Need to link various climate factors
• Awareness of other inputs