All Climate Events

Wednesday, October 2, 2019. 10:00AM. Webinar: CHIKRisk App: Global Mapping and Prediction of Chikungunya Risk. Assaf Anyamba, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Sponsored by OneNOAA Science Seminar Series. More information here. 

Emerging and re-emerging diseases of global public health concern are recognized to be closely associated with variations in global climate regime. Recent chikungunya epidemics in the Americas (2013-2016), Africa, Indian Ocean and Asia (2005-20067 and have been associated with extreme departures in climate parameters including rainfall and temperature. Chikungunya in particular has illustrated the potential for global spread as demonstrated with epidemics in the Americas, Mediterranean Europe and by the limited local transmission in Florida and Texas. Under the umbrella of the Department of Defense (DoD) " Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) " Biosurveillance Ecosystem (BSVE) and NOAA International Research and Applications Project (IRAP) programs, we have developed a global chikungunya mapping and forecasting application system to map areas at risk for chikungunya concurrently and 1 to 3 months ahead. Using this model, we are producing monthly risk maps based on climate observations and forecast risk maps based on NOAA's North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME) temperature and rainfall seasonal forecasts. This effort is aimed at supporting DoD Force Health Protection (FHP) mission, regions of the US at risk (Texas and Florida) and international public health agencies (including World Health Organization, PAHO). This nascent effort illustrates how massive amounts of climate datasets combined with publicly available outbreak information using machine learning methods, can be brought to address an issue of public health concern. This effort demonstrates and provides a template that can be employed in the immediate and near future to develop applications relevant to other vector-borne and ecologically coupled diseases.