Download Dimensions of climate and health risks and opportunities Rural and

Dimensions of climate and health risks and
opportunities
Rural and agriculture
19th May 2016
Helsinki
Madeleine C. Thomson
International Research Institute for Climate and Society,
Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Mailman School of
Public Health, Columbia University, New York.
PAHO/WHO Collaborating Centre on early warning
systems for malaria and other climate sensitive diseases
There are many drivers of health
outcome – what makes climate unique?
• it is measured routinely around the world by the
meteorological/climate community
• It operates at multiple temporal and spatial scales – suitable for
integration with surveillance data
• It is partially predictable in some seasons, regions, timescales
• It drives many aspects of life that impact on health including
agriculture, food security, livehihoods, nutrition etc- especially in
rural areas.
Climate is measured using
observations, remote sensing
and models
Climate varies on multi timescales
• Day and night – rotation of the Earth every 24 hours
• Seasonal cycle – movement of the Earth around the
sun
• Year to year variability - Short term cyclical changes
in sea surface temperature (ENSO)
• Decadal variability – long term cyclical changes in
sea surface temperature
• Climate change – anthropogenic forcing
It is partially
predictable in
some regions
and seasons
Predictability across timescales..
Where are we?
“Good”
UNDERSTANDING
“Some Info”
PREDICTABILITY
“Frontier”
Seasonal-to
Seasonal
-Interannual
Climate
Change
Change
Decadal
Decadal
Timescale
Our understanding of climate variability and our
ability to predict it is not constant across timescales.
Predicting the Climate of the Coming Decades
RSMAS -- January 11, 2010
Thanks to Lawrence Haddad, Jess
Fanzo, Israel Ukawuba and Aisha
Muhammad
Climate and Nutrition: Conceptual Links
GNR 2015
Food environment
Work/social environment
Health access impacted by
seasonally impassable roads
Blanford et al. International Journal of Health Geographics 2012, 11:24 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
http://www.ij-healthgeographics.com/content/11/1/24
Living environment
Why rainfall seasonality is important for health
and well being
Seasonality affects every aspect of life in rural
areas from food security, infectious disease,
access to health facilities, disposable income,
births, deaths, marriages etc.
According to Robert Chambers “seasonal hunger
is the father of famine” and that “any
development professional serious about poverty
has … to be serious about seasonality.”
Popular in development studies in the 1970s, and
1980’s Seasonality is back.
Seasonal hunger may be the primary indicator of
population vulnerability to climate change
Seasonal and year to year variability
Epidemic malaria in Kericho associated with
long term trends and the 1997/8 El Niño
Thomson, M.C. Connor, S.J., Zebiak, S.E. Jancloes, M., and Mihretie, A (2011) Africa needs climate data
to fight disease. Nature, 471 440-442 (24th March 2011)
Predicted and actual trends in East African rainfall
Left: Projected climate change 2080-2099) IPCC 4th Assessment, Right:
Observed decline in MAM rainfall 1979-2009) Funk (2011)
Time scale Decomposition
Figure 1 Timescale decomposition for annual rainfall (upper panel) and temperature (lower panel), indicating the total explained
variance for the long-term trend (first column), decadal (middle column) and inter-annual variability (right column). (Rainfall data:
CRUv3.21; Temperature data: GISSLO Munoz et al., 2016.
Why is Climate Information so rarely used in
support of development interventions?
‘Gap Analysis’ identified Gaps in:
• policy
• practice
• services
• data
Market atrophy - negligible demand
coupled with inadequate supply of
climate services
The Goal of ENACTS (Enhancing National Climate Services) is
to transform local, national and regional climate-sensitive
development decisions through the widespread uptake of
timely, relevant, locally enhanced, quality assured climate
information at relevant spatial and temporal scales.
Bulletin World Meteorological Society 2011
ENACTS Advantage
ARC RFE
ENACTS Monitoring
ENACTS Climate Analysis
Enhanced National
Climate Services
(ENACTS) Ethiopia
New products combine
locally calibrated satellite
rainfall and temperature
estimates and all available
quality controlled groundbased meteorological
station gauge data.
30 years – every 10 days
every 10km
Climate Analysis tool exploring
ENACTS data for Oromia
ENACTS data in Tanzania
Comparison of CMAP and ENACTS rainfall
Weighted Anomaly Standardized Precipitation (WASP) Index
CPC Merged Analysis of Precipitation (CMAP) ENACTS
Ethiopian analysis
What is the impact of El Nino on Rainfall
and Temperature??
Historical probability of seasonal monthly averages conditioned on El Niño in Ethiopia a)
a) Low rainfall for Jul-Sep and (b) high rainfall Oct-Dec (c) high minimum temperatures
Oct-Dec
July to September 2015 drought
Trends JASOND Minimum Temperature anomalies in highland (2000-2500ft) Oromia
region (see insert) based on ENACTS data 1981-2014..
What can we do with climate
information?
I.
improve understanding of the mechanisms of climates
impact on transmission pathways and health outcomes
(basic research)
II. estimate populations at risk (risk mapping)
III. estimate seasonality of disease and timing of
interventions
IV. monitor and predict year-to-year variations in
incidence (including early warning systems)
V. monitor and predict longer term trends (climate
change impacts and vulnerability assessments)
VI. improve assessment of the impact of interventions (by
removing climate as a confounder)
CCAFS role in
ENACTS and WISER
Jim Hansen
WISER ENACTS Launch Meeting, 18 February 2016
Rwanda
ENACTS
Launch
SERVER/SUSTAINABILITY
: 24/7 Server
SERVER/SUSTAINABILITY
: 24/7 Server
BARRIERS TO ENACTS
MAPROOM ONLINE AVAILABILITY
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Power cuts, power shedding; no automatic generator backup
Network outages, network overloading
Hardware failure; lightning strikes
Backup personnel not in place
Trained staff leaving the institution
No local monitoring of availability
Going to scale
• 24/7 national climate data, products and services
designed to serve user needs – ENACTS
• Education and training materials through school,
universities (schools of public health) and professional
training using national climate knowledge and data
• Multiple case studies integrating climate information
into decision-making for improved health outcomes
• Nutrition – intersection of climate, health, agriculture
and disasters.
• Communication of results with policy makers