This dialogue is archived with 3 entries. 

Comments: The international health and development community needs more training in applications of earth system science. Some important topics are: sea level rise, seasonal climate forecasts, vulnerability to the impacts of ecosystem changes. I have three general recommendations:

• There should be more interactive, learner-oriented techniques (role-playing, hands-on computer visualizations, etc.) that extend the material in lectures, books, and articles.
  
• There should be specific approaches for decision-makers that stress practical applications and de-emphasize technical background, in contrast to approaches for training researchers.
  
• The international health and development community should provide examples to earth system science educators who are developing new curricula.

Monday, July 07, 2003

Participant name: Joan L. Aron

Affiliation: Science Communication Studies (IAI/CRN)

Country: USA

Comments: The hydrology data support team at NASA/GSFC/DAAC and George Mason University have developed tools for easy and quick access of Earth science remote sensing and observation data products.

Among the tools, I highly recommend TOVAS (TRMM Online Visualization and Analysis System). TOVAS provides precipitation data and time series for the tropics and could be an important information source for disease studies and mapping activities. Also the 0.1 monthly NDVI anomalies provide a lot of useful information. The URLs are

TOVAS:
http://daac.gsfc.nasa.gov/CAMPAIGN_DOCS/hydrology/TRMM_analysis.html

Anomaly analyses:
http://esip.gmu.edu/~zliu/Other_precip/Cort_Kenji_precip_all.html
http://esip.gmu.edu/~zliu/TRMM/TRMM_3B43_ana_all.html

Other analysis tools:
http://www.siesip.gmu.edu/ES_gridded_online_analysis_gmu.html

Global 0.1 deg. monthly NDVI:
http://esip.gmu.edu/~zliu/NDVI/Global_Monthly_NDVI_Hires_new.html

We welcome collaborations of using these products and tools if you need more customized data and information.

Friday, July 18, 2003

Participant name: Zhong Liu

Affiliation: NASA/GSFC/DAAC and George Mason University

Country: USA

Comments: My feeling is that the most important are those topics that include phenomena with direct impacts to human population health, such as climate variability and change; depletion of stratospheric ozone; water issues (scarcity; quality); biodiversity issues (linkage of species with emerging infections; use of genetic resources as therapeutic agents).

Other topics such as desertification and soil depletion; biogeochemical cycling etc. are important for the understanding of the earth system but have less direct links with human disease and health. However all these topics must be associated with approaches to the assessment of human vulnerability since no natural factor alone can affect human health on its own. Even an earthquake as a hazard will have greater health impacts on populations poorly served by appropriate habitation policies; civil defense and health services; information, etc.

Thursday, July 31, 2003

Participant name: Ulisses Confalonieri

Affiliation: FIOCRUZ

Country: Brazil

Diagnostics and prediction of climate variability and human health impacts in the tropical Americas