INFORMATIVE MEETING: “THE IMPACT ON HEALTH OF EXTREME ATMOSPHERIC EVENTS EXACERBATED BY CLIMATE CHANGE”.

The meeting will be divided in 2 stages.

Stage 1: At least five plenary sessions will take place, imparted by invited experts and members of the project working team.

1. Introduction to the informative meeting and presentation of the project;
2. Influence of climate change on extreme atmospheric events evolution;
3. Influence of transport events of African dust on the atmospheric pollutants levels and on mortality and morbidity of the Madrid region;
4. Identification of synergy effects due to transport events of African dust that potentially increase the adverse effects on health that they cause;
5. Effects on health in national territory zones due to occurrence of other type of extreme atmospheric events related to climate change: Heatwaves and forest fires.

Stage 2: A debate will take place with the aim to propose and evaluate mitigation strategies of the adverse effects on health and adaptation of the population, yielded by the occurrence of future transport events of African dust in Madrid, open to all participants of the meeting.

Participation of members of the following institutions is foreseen: Instituto de Diagnóstico Ambiental y Estudios del Agua (IDAEA- CSIC) (expertise in African dust long-range transport events' studies, and their effects on air quality), ISCIII epidemiologic group (expertise in ambient factors impact on morbidity and mortality in urban areas), Facultad de CC Físicas UCM (expertise in climate change and its consequences in the evolution of extreme atmospheric events), Universidad de Aveiro, Portugal (expertise in assessment and evaluation of wildfires impact over the Iberian Peninsula, Figures VIIa and VIIb) and Subdirección General de Calidad del Aire y Medio Ambiente Industrial del MAPAMA.
¡¡DEVELOPING!!

Figure VIIa. Image of wildfires and smoke in northern Portugal and Galicia (Spain), acquired on 9 August 2006 by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument, on board the Terra satellite. Active wildfires are highlighted in red. Terra MODIS NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center. Source: https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/

 

Figure VIIb. Image of wildfires and smoke in Central Portugal, acquired on 18 June 2017 by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument, on board the Terra satellite. Active wildfires are highlighted in red. Terra MODIS NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center. Source: https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/