Towards an Early Warning System for mitigating vulnerability to

1
Towards an Early Warning System for mitigating
vulnerability to high-impact weather, climate,
air quality and associated health hazards in
Africa Melvyn A. Shapiro (NOAA)
2
Towards an Early Warning System for mitigating
vulnerability to high-impact weather, climate,
air quality and associated health hazards in
Africa Melvyn A. Shapiro (NOAA)
3
Towards an Early Warning System for mitigating
vulnerability to high-impact weather, climate,
air quality and associated health hazards in
Africa Melvyn A. Shapiro (NOAA)
4
Towards an Early Warning System for mitigating
vulnerability to high-impact weather, climate,
air quality and associated health hazards in
Africa Melvyn A. Shapiro (NOAA)
5
Towards an Early Warning System for mitigating
vulnerability to high-impact weather, climate,
air quality and associated health hazards in
Africa Melvyn A. Shapiro (NOAA)
6
Towards an Early Warning System for mitigating
vulnerability to high-impact weather, climate,
air quality and associated health hazards in
Africa Melvyn A. Shapiro (NOAA)
7
NCAR
I have a very strong feeling that science exists
to serve human welfare. Its wonderful to have
the opportunity given us by society to do basic
research, but in return, we have a very important
moral responsibility to apply that research to
benefiting humanity.
Walter Orr
Roberts
8
NCAR
I have a very strong feeling that science exists
to serve human welfare. Its wonderful to have
the opportunity given us by society to do basic
research, but in return, we have a very important
moral responsibility to apply that research to
benefiting humanity.
Walter Orr
Roberts
9
(No Transcript)
10
(No Transcript)
11
Armageddon October 2002 First by Flood Second
by Fire And then came Pestilence and Plague
12
Northwestern Floods October 2002
Two sub-tropical weather systems dropped 470
millimetres -- 18.5 inches -- of rain on some
parts of coastal B.C. in a six-day
period" British Columbia - Record breaking heavy
rain in Vancouver, Abbotsford and Victoria on
October 16. Bridge washout cuts access to
Pemberton, BC. "It is being called the worst
flood of the past century" in British
Columbia. Washington - Skokomish, Nooksack and
Skagit rivers overflowed October 17-18. Seattle
broke a one-day rainfall record on October 20.
Record levels on Skagit River at Concrete. 
Record levels on Skokomish River on October 21.
Entire town of Hamilton under water. Flood
damages have exceeded 160 million.
13
Southern California Wild Fires October 2002
14
Rossby Wave Trains
15
(No Transcript)
16
84-h accumulated precipitation mm October 2024
2003. Shading is simulated precipitation and
numbers (mm) observed (from Peter Knippertz, U.
Wisc.).
17
North African Locust Plague 2003
18
Five Months Later March 2004
19
250-mb Meridional Wind (ms-1) 8 Febuary - 8
March 2004
20
250-mb Meridional Wind (ms-1) 50-25 N 8
Febuary-8 March 2004
13 Feb
4 Mar
W. Africa
W. Africa
W. Africa
21
250-mb Meridional Wind (ms-1) 50-25 N 8
Febuary-8 March 2004
Rossby wave energy dispersion over 21 Days
13 Feb
4 Mar
W. Africa
W. Africa
W. Africa
22
(No Transcript)
23
Rossby Wave-Train Ray Path
50 N.
EQUATOR
24
(No Transcript)
25
(No Transcript)
26
(No Transcript)
27
Dust
28
(No Transcript)
29
Hoggar
TIBESTI
AJR
30
(No Transcript)
31
(No Transcript)
32
(No Transcript)
33
. Jerusalem Post 9 March 06 The Environment
Ministry urged pregnant women, young children,
those with respiration problems and the elderly
to stay inside and refrain from strenuous outdoor
activity Thursday because of the copious amounts
of dust in the air. The third dust storm in six
weeks blew in from Africa Israel and caused
respiratory distress to asthma patients. The
Environment Ministry said its sensors had
registered a high number of particles in the air
that could impair breathing. out of the air
34
(No Transcript)
35
(No Transcript)
36
(No Transcript)
37
(No Transcript)
38
(No Transcript)
39
(No Transcript)
40
(No Transcript)
41
(No Transcript)
42
(No Transcript)
43
(No Transcript)
44
(No Transcript)
45
(No Transcript)
46
(No Transcript)
47
(No Transcript)
48
(No Transcript)
49
(No Transcript)
50
(No Transcript)
51
(No Transcript)
52
(No Transcript)
53
(No Transcript)
54
(No Transcript)
55
(No Transcript)
56
(No Transcript)
57
NCAR/WRF ARW Dynamical Core Configuration
D01
D02
D04
D03
58
Surface Topography
2,400 m
NCAR/WRF ARW Dynamical Core Resolution 3 km-39
levels
HOGGAR
59
(No Transcript)
60
(No Transcript)
61
(No Transcript)
62
(No Transcript)
63
(No Transcript)
64
(No Transcript)
65
(No Transcript)
66
(No Transcript)
67
(No Transcript)
68
(No Transcript)
69
(No Transcript)
70
(No Transcript)
71
(No Transcript)
72
(No Transcript)
73
(No Transcript)
74
(No Transcript)
75
(No Transcript)
76
Tibesti
77
(No Transcript)
78
Haggar
Tibesti
Ajr
79
(No Transcript)
80
Haggar
Tibesti
Ajr
81
(No Transcript)
82
Health Forecasting in Africa The Global Weather
Perspective M. A. Shapiro Co-chair THORPEX
Science Advisory Board
83
(No Transcript)
84
(No Transcript)
85
(No Transcript)
86
Meningitis
Meningitis
87
(No Transcript)
88
Malaria Fight In Africa Needs Better Donor
Coordination And More Financial Help, Says World
Bank Chief
Parade of schoolchildren celebrating Africa
Malaria Day (celebrated annually and promoted
actively by the Roll Back Malaria Partnership).
"Treated Bednets Prevents Malaria". May
2003Photographer Suprotik Basu Photographer
Suprotik Basu
89
TOMS Satellite Image
90
African dust storms send germs to America June
18, 2001 Posted 817 AM EDT (1217 GMT)
(CNN) -- Besides painting American sunsets red
when they cross over the Atlantic, colossal
Saharan dust storms bring loads of potentially
dangerous micro-organisms to the New World,
according to scientists, Richard Stenger CNN
91
Florida Red Tide Bloom of Gymnodinium breve
92
Florida Red Tide Bloom of Gymnodinium breve
93
African Dust and Coral Reef Health
Dust streaming off of western Africa and over the
Cape Verde Islands and the Atlantic Ocean may
also be harmful to coral reefs in the Caribbean
Sea. A type of fungus (Aspergillus spores) found
in the dust has been identified in coral reefs of
the Virgin Islands, and die offs of the coral
have been associated with drought in western
Africa. Additionally, the dust carries nutrients
such as iron that may trigger the growth of
phytoplankton and algae. There is a possibility
that the die off and regeneration of coral in the
Caribbean is linked to cyclic episodes of drought
across western Africa.
94
Saharan Dust
95
(No Transcript)
96
North Atlantic Oscillation (positive phase)
97
North Atlantic Oscillation (negative phase)
98
Dust
NAO
NAO
Rainfall
West/Central Sahel Rainfall 1950-2004base
period 1950-1990)
99
Towards A Multi-hazard Early Warning And Response
System In West Africa A Multi-hazard Approach
To Forecasting Adverse Health Impacts In Africa
100
An Effective Warning System Is Expected To

• Reduce the risk of epidemic diseases in the
  Sahel
• Improve routine rural and urban health care for
  weather- and climate sensitive diseases
• Increase capacity in the operational/research
  weather, climate and health communities to serve
  national development agendas through reduction in
  risk associated with weather- and climate-related
  health hazards.

101
Multi-hazard Early Warning And Response System

• This project aims to contribute to the
  development a multi-hazard early warning and
  response system (MEWARS) to enable national
  health services cope with both the impacts of
  normal seasonal variability in disease/health
  hazard occurrence, and scaled up interventions in
  time to prevent a disaster whenever one
  threatens.
• The primary impact sought by MEWARS is a 50
  reduction in both morbidity and mortality,
  especially of women and children under five years
  old (Millennium Development Goals 6, 5, 4 3).

102
Multi-hazard Early Warning

• Early warning systems for weather and climate
  sensitive epidemic diseases require similar
  information, tools, capacity to those which can
  serve for early warning of pest outbreaks (e.g.
  Locusts), food insecurity, flood hazards and
  droughts
• Therefore it makes political, financial,
  technical and operational sense to develop one
  multi-hazard early warning system to serve a
  number of sectoral response purposes
• Developing the capacity to respond to warnings of
  adverse events at the institutional as well as
  the community level is critical to the creation
  of an effective early warning system.
• It is therefore essential to develop the
  integrated early warning systems embedded in the
  institutions that deal with response with a
  direct connection to the community affected

103
Results Required

• Partnership
• An effective collaboration established between
  the operational health, weather and climate
  communities to create and sustain early warning
  systems for adverse weather and climate related
  health events (disease, nutrition, hazards) at
  the national and regional level
• Partnership strengthening
• Operational capacity in the health community to
  use weather and climate information
• Alongside the development of operational capacity
  in the meteorological community to deliver
  appropriate weather and climate information in a
  timely manner and in a useful format (including
  observed and forecasting information at
  appropriate spatial and temporal scales)

104
Results Required

• Communication
• To develop and test a strategy in priority
  locations for the dissemination of weather and
  climate based early warning to local decision
  makers
• Sustainability
• Suitable materials developed to sustain efficient
  and effective communications between the weather,
  climate and health communities, e.g. climate risk
  toolbox
• Integration of methods into future capacity
  strengthening and training activities in the
  health, weather and climate communities
• Demonstration of regional and national
  institutional structures necessary to sustain an
  operational early warning system for
  decision-makers and the public

105
Results Required

• Targeted research to improve knowledge management
  of risk reduction by
• Improving the capacity of the health sector to
  predict climate related health hazards through
  carefully designed impact studies
• Improving the capacity of the weather/climate/envi
  ronmental monitoring community to make
  operational existing and newly available
  climate/weather products now and to tailor these
  products to particular end-user needs in
  disease/epidemic, agriculture/food security,
  flood/drought and locust situations
• Establishing the appropriate temporal and spatial
  scales at which weather and climate information
  can provide valuable new information to decision
  makers for specific health related problems
  (week, month, season, decade for village,
  district, region)

106
DEMETER multi-model ensembles forecasting system
Bulletin of the American Meteorology Society 85,
(6) 853872.
107
DJF Precipitation Composites
Observation (CMAP)
High Malaria years 88, 89, 93, 96, 97,
Low Malaria years 82, 83, 87, 92, 02,
1)    Thomson, M. C., F. J. Doblas-Reyes, S. J.
Mason, R. Hagedorn, S. J. Connor, T. Phindela, A.
P. Morse, and T. N. Palmer, 2006. Nature, 439,
576-579.
108
(No Transcript)
109
Partnership

• World Health Organization
• International Federation of the Red Cross and Red
  Crescent Societies
• World Meteorological Organization
• WHO Multi Disease Surveillance Centre (MDSC),
  Burkina Faso
• Centre de Recherche Médicale et Sanitaire
  (CERMES), Niger
• Direction de la Météorologie Nationale du Niger
  (NMD), Niger
• African Centre of Meteorological Applications for
  Development (ACMAD), Niger
• AGRHYMET Regional Centre, Niger

• International Research Institute for Climate and
  Society (IRI), USA
• European Centre for Medium-Range Weather
  Forecasts (ECMWF), UK
• Institut de Recherche Pour le Développement
  (IRD), France
• Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM), UK
• Météo France, France
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
  (NOAA), USA
• University of Liverpool (UofL), UK

110
No warning to the population was raised and no
measure taken to reduce the impact of the
disaster, even though the meteorological office
in Algiers has announced two days before that a
strong storm will arrive in Algeria on Friday
night and all of us were waiting for it, but
unfortunately no warning from the concerned
services was made to tell the population what to
do. It looks like the government does not have
any strategy on Disaster Management.
111
(No Transcript)
112
Health Forecasting in Africa The Global Weather
Perspective M. A. Shapiro Co-chair THORPEX
Science Advisory Board