As part of the Horizon Europe project TRIGGER (SoluTions foR mItiGatinG climate-induced hEalth thReats), ECMWF provides forecasts for health indicators based on the Integrated Forecasting System (IFS). The indicators refers to hazards with potentially detrimental effects to human health, namely heat and cold stress, air pollution and allergenic pollens. Forecasts are calculated on the medium range (4- to 10-days leadtime) up to the subseasonal range.
TRIGGER forecast products are displayed as colour-coded time series information at five Climate-Health Connection (CHC) Labs. There are two main products: the meteogram product and the overview table product.
TRIGGER meteograms
A TRIGGER meteogram shows the hourly evolution of a health indicator forecast at a CHC Lab. A TRIGGER meteogram consists of a title section and a time series plot.
The title section gives the name and the true height of the CHC Lab location, the co-ordinates of the grid point used based on the IFS resolution (9 km x 9 km) and the name of the forecasted health indicator.
The time series plot displays the predicted health indicator up to the next days or weeks. The values of the predicted health indicator are plotted along the vertical axis and the forecast horizon is plotted along the horizontal axis.
The time series plot displays a solid line, which is the median of an ensemble of 50 different forecasts produced by the IFS for the health indicator. The median forecast gives the best estimate from the ensemble. Around the median forecast, the plot may also show grey shaded areas, which are the 10th, 25th, 75th and 95th percentile of the ensemble forecasts. The larger the grey shaded areas the larger the uncertainty in the health indicator forecast.
The time series plot background is colour-coded based on thresholds that, according to the scientific literature, are meaningful for human health. Compared against the thresholds, the health indicator forecast(s) indicate potential upcoming health hazards over the forecast window.
Product name | Description | Outputs | Forecasting horizon | Forecast Model |
Heat and cold stress | Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI), Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT), Wind Chill Temperature (WCT) | Meteogram | 10 days | IFS |
Air pollution | Particulate matter (PM10), fine particulate matter (PM2.5), ozone (O3), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) | Meteogram | 4 days | CAMS |
UV index | Meteogram | 4 days | IFS/CAMS | |
Allergenic pollens | Birch, grass, ragweed | Meteogram | 4 days | CAMS |
Air temperature | Weekly mean anomaly | Meteogram | 6 weeks | IFS |
TRIGGER overview table
The TRIGGER overview table provides a detailed view of the weather and weather-related health hazards for the days and weeks ahead at a given CHC Lab.
For all the health-meaningful climate variables and indicators (rows) and forecast horizons on the medium range (columns) it shows the daily maximum predicted value, rounded to the unit. For the extended forecast of 2m air temperature, the table reports the weekly median value. Cells are colour-coded to visually highlight days when the forecast value of a given indicator falls in ranges that, according to the scientific literature, could be meaningful for health impacts.