Regional Dust Storm Modeling for Health Services: The Case of Valley Fever

Authors

William A. Sprigg, Chapman UniversityFollow
Slobodan Nickovic, University of Arizona, TucsonFollow
John N. Galgiani, University of Arizona, Tucson
Goran Pejanovic, South East European Virtual Climate Change Center, Republic Hydrometeorological Service, SerbiaFollow
Slavo Petkovic, South East European Virtual Climate Change Center, Republic Hydrometeorological Service, SerbiaFollow
Mirjam Vujadinovic, South East European Virtual Climate Change Center, Republic Hydrometeorological Service, SerbiaFollow
Ana Vukovic, South East European Virtual Climate Change Center, Republic Hydrometeorological Service, SerbiaFollow
Milan Dacic, South East European Virtual Climate Change Center, Republic Hydrometeorological Service, SerbiaFollow
Scott DiBiase, Pinal County Air Quality Control District
Anup K. Prasad, Chapman UniversityFollow
Hesham el-Askary, Chapman UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2014

Abstract

On 5 July 2011, a massive dust storm struck Phoenix, Arizona (USA), raising concerns for increased cases of valley fever (coccidioidomycosis, or, cocci). A quasi-operational experimental airborne dust forecast system predicted the event and provides model output for continuing analysis in collaboration with public health and air quality communities. An objective of this collaboration was to see if a signal in cases of valley fever in the region could be detected and traced to the storm - an American haboob. To better understand the atmospheric life cycle of cocci spores, the DREAM dust model (also herein, NMME-DREAM) was modified to simulate spore emission, transport and deposition. Inexact knowledge of where cocci-causing fungus grows, the low resolution of cocci surveillance and an overall active period for significant dust events complicate analysis of the effect of the 5 July 2011 storm. In the larger context of monthly to annual disease surveillance, valley fever statistics, when compared against PM10 observation networks and modeled airborne dust concentrations, may reveal a likely cause and effect. Details provided by models and satellites fill time and space voids in conventional approaches to air quality and disease surveillance, leading to land-atmosphere modeling and remote sensing that clearly mark a path to advance valley fever epidemiology, surveillance and risk avoidance. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).

Comments

This article was originally published in Aeolian Research, volume14, in 2014. DOI: 10.1016/j.aeolia.2014.03.001

Recommended Citation

Sprigg, William A., et al. "Regional dust storm modeling for health services: the case of valley fever." Aeolian Research 14 (2014): 53-73. doi:10.1016/j.aeolia.2014.03.001

Copyright

The authors

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.