15th Conf on Biometeorology and Aerobiology and the 16th International Congress of Biometeorology

Monday, 28 October 2002: 2:00 PM
Back trajectory analysis of high winter extreme Ischaemic Heart Disease mortality events, Birmingham, UK
Glenn R. McGregor, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, West Midlands, United Kingdom
Previous analyses of the meteorological and air mass sensitivity of Ischaemic Heart Disease (IHD) mortality for the Birmingham area UK have revealed the prevalence of two major types of weather for engendering high daily IHD mortality rates. These are swiftly changing weather conditions from the west associated with the rapid eastwardly movement of a North Atlantic low pressure system and strong cold flows from the easterly quarter originating from intense high pressure system over central and northern Europe. While the identification of these conditions and their associated synoptic scale atmospheric circulation configuration may be useful for developing weather-health watch warning systems, such system development could benefit from information concerning the origins of the air masses associated with elevated IHD mortality levels. The purpose of this study then is to build a climatology of air mass back trajectories associated with extreme IHD mortality events in order to establish whether there are recurrent trajectories associated with high daily IHD mortality rates. The implications of analysis results and how these could be integrated into a system for short to medium term prediction of daily IHD mortality rates, will be discussed.

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