In the framework of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) SIS European Health, VITO has provided to the Climate Data Store 100m resolution hourly temperature data for 100 European cities, based on simulations with the urban climate model UrbClim (De Ridder et al., 2015). From this dataset, this climate suitability dataset has been generated based on annual precipitation and the average temperature in January and during the summer period (months June, July and August) for the years 2008-2009, following the methodology by European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC, 2009).

This approach considers empirical suitability functions, which link a number of climate variables to the suitability of a habitat. The suitability for tiger mosquito is zero when the annual rainfall is lower than 450 mm, and maximum suitability is reached when the annual rainfall is higher than 800 mm. For summer temperatures, the suitability is zero when temperatures were lower than 15°C and higher than 30°C, and maximum suitability is between 20°C and 25°C. For January temperatures, the suitability is zero when temperatures were lower than -1°C and maximum when temperatures were higher than 3°C.The different suitability functions are then entered into a weighted linear combination approach and the results were rescaled to a range between 0 and 100.

The P90 indicator represents the specific exposure of single cities and is independent of the model domain or size of a city. Since it is the 90th percentile, there are a number of grid cells (areas) in a city with an even higher suitability value, so it should be considered as a rather conservative value.

References:

* ECDC (2009): Development of Aedes albopictus Risk Maps, Technical Report 0905. See: https://ecdc.europa.eu/sites/portal/files/media/en/publications/Publications/0905_TER_Development_of_Aedes_Albopictus_Risk_Maps.pdf

* Copernicus Climate Change Service (2019): Web application: Climatic suitability of the Aedes albopictus mosquito in European cities from 2008 to 2017 derived from reanalysis: http://136.156.132.3/cds-forms-c3s/app-health-urban-aedes-albopictus-suitability-climatology/Web_Application_URBAN.3_v1_latest.pdf

* De Ridder, K, Lauwaet D. and Maiheu, B. (2015): UrbClim – A fast urban boundary layer climate model, Urban Climate, Vol. 12, pp. 21–48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2015.01.001.