Vol. 19, No. 38

Aug. 24, 2000

Weather watchers

Foreign officials met with Laurence Kalkstein (right) and Scott Sheridan, (second from right) Center for Climatic Research, this summer. They include Paulo Nogueira (center) of the Portuguese National Health Institute, and Mebao Yin (left) and Jianguo Tan (second from left) of the Shanghai Meteorological Institute. Kalkstein and Sheridan are training Nogueira, Tan and Yin to use the heat/health watch warning system, created by Kalkstein. The system will alert Lisbon and Shanghai officials to climatic conditions that indicate a probability of deaths due to heat. The alert gives officials 48 hours to put the system's intervention plan into action. Each plan is designed to be specific to each city. Shanghai's system will be in use by summer 2001 and the Lisbon system is in the planning stage. Also in the developing stage is a United Nations umbrella organization that would support the installation of the system in appropriate locations throughout the world. — Barbara Garrison