Earth ID: 3807

Predicting Disease Outbreaks from Space

Visualizations by Helen-Nicole Kostis Released on August 31, 2011

These visualizations were created for the May 18, 2012 Library of Congress Talk Predictiding Disease Outbreaks from Space. In this talk NASA scientist Assaf Anyamba, will present how using remote-sensing data we can see links among weather, diseases and famine.

An early warning system more than a decade in development successfully predicted the 2006-2007 outbreak of the deadly Rift Valley Fever (RVF) in East Africa and subsequent outbreaks in Sudan (2007) and South Africa (2008-2011). RVF is a deadly hemorrhagic disease transmitted by mosquitoes that infects livestock and human populations episodically. An international team of research scientists, public-health professionals, agricultural specialists and military personnel had worked for a decade to successfully predict when and where an outbreak of RVF would occur.

This visualization shows the relationships between Sea Surface Temperature (SST) Anomaly, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) Anomaly and Rift Valley Fever (RVF) outbreaks in Africa during 2004-2010.

Visualization Credits

Helen-Nicole Kostis (USRA): Lead Animator
Greg Shirah (NASA/GSFC): Animator
Horace Mitchell (NASA/GSFC): Animator
Ernie Wright (USRA): Animator
Assaf Anyamba (USRA): Scientist
Jennifer Small (SSAI): Project Support

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

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https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3807

Data Used:

Aqua/AMSR-E/Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly

10/01/2005 - 05/29/2010

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Climate Prediction Center (CPC) Africa Rainfall Estimate Climatology also referred to as: CPC ARC

Data Compilation - NOAA CPC

Input data used for operational rainfall estimates are from 4 sources: 1) Daily GTS rain gauge data for up to 1000 stations 2) AMSU microwave satellite precipitation estimates up to 4 times per day 3) SSM/I satellite rainfall estimates up to 4 times per day 4) GPI cloud-top IR temperature precipitation estimates on a half-hour basis.

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/fews/AFR_CLIM/afr_clim.shtml

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Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details nor the data sets themselves on our site.

Keywords:
DLESE >> Environmental science
SVS >> HDTV
DLESE >> Human geography
SVS >> NDVI
SVS >> Rainfall
SVS >> SST Anomaly
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Human Dimensions >> Human Health >> Diseases/Epidemics
GCMD >> Location >> Africa
SVS >> Hyperwall
NASA Science >> Earth

GCMD keywords can be found on the Internet with the following citation: Olsen, L.M., G. Major, K. Shein, J. Scialdone, S. Ritz, T. Stevens, M. Morahan, A. Aleman, R. Vogel, S. Leicester, H. Weir, M. Meaux, S. Grebas, C.Solomon, M. Holland, T. Northcutt, R. A. Restrepo, R. Bilodeau, 2013. NASA/Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Earth Science Keywords. Version 8.0.0.0.0