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Combining dispersion modelling with synoptic patterns to understand the wind-borne transport into the UK of the bluetongue disease vector

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Abstract

Bluetongue, an economically important animal disease, can be spread over long distances by carriage of insect vectors (Culicoides biting midges) on the wind. The weather conditions which influence the midge’s flight are controlled by synoptic scale atmospheric circulations. A method is proposed that links wind-borne dispersion of the insects to synoptic circulation through the use of a dispersion model in combination with principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis. We illustrate how to identify the main synoptic situations present during times of midge incursions into the UK from the European continent. A PCA was conducted on high-pass-filtered mean sea-level pressure data for a domain centred over north-west Europe from 2005 to 2007. A clustering algorithm applied to the PCA scores indicated the data should be divided into five classes for which averages were calculated, providing a classification of the main synoptic types present. Midge incursion events were found to mainly occur in two synoptic categories; 64.8% were associated with a pattern displaying a pressure gradient over the North Atlantic leading to moderate south-westerly flow over the UK and 17.9% of the events occurred when high pressure dominated the region leading to south-easterly or easterly winds. The winds indicated by the pressure maps generally compared well against observations from a surface station and analysis charts. This technique could be used to assess frequency and timings of incursions of virus into new areas on seasonal and decadal timescales, currently not possible with other dispersion or biological modelling methods.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge comments on the paper from John Gloster, Paul Agnew and Derrick Ryall at the Met Office, UK and Anthony Wilson and Christopher Sanders at the Pirbright Institute, UK. The Atmospheric Dispersion and Air Quality Group at the Met Office, UK is also thanked for the use of NAME. Laura Burgin was funded by Defra contract SE4204.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Met Office, FitzRoy Road, Exeter, EX1 3PB, UK

    Laura Burgin

  2. CSIRO Land and Water, Black Mountain, GPO Box 1700, Canberra, 2601, ACT, Australia

    Marie Ekström

  3. School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK

    Suraje Dessai

Authors
  1. Laura Burgin
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  2. Marie Ekström
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  3. Suraje Dessai
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Correspondence to Marie Ekström.

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Burgin, L., Ekström, M. & Dessai, S. Combining dispersion modelling with synoptic patterns to understand the wind-borne transport into the UK of the bluetongue disease vector. Int J Biometeorol 61, 1233–1245 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-016-1301-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-016-1301-1

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