SciDev.Net

The AMMA programme aims to study how the West African monsoon affects meningitis and malaria epidemics. While it focuses on one weather system, the climate factors it looks at can be generalised to other environments. For example, it examines how wind, dust, rainfall, temperature and humidity, amongst others, affect mosquito density and malaria or meningitis epidemics in people. The website also offers a key resource for researchers in the form of an open-access bibliographic database containing more than 250 scientific articles.

This LSHTM centre collaborates on projects with the WHO and is the hub for several projects on the health effects of climate change. There is little in the way of background information but the site distils the key points and offers summaries of its own research.

One project looks at the global burden of disease associated with climate change, another is doing a multi-sectoral assessment of the worldwide impact of climate change. LSHTM researchers have published extensively on health and climate change — they were among the first in the world to do so — and the site contains a useful list of these publications.

After the release of the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2001, UNEP and GRID Arendal published this set of 25 graphics focused on the special challenges that Africa faces due to expected long term climate change. 

Three sections cover the evidence of change in Africa, the science driving these changes, and vulnerability to — and trends in — extreme events on the continent. The graphics also show the severity of climate impacts on fresh water, human health, and food in Africa.