Climatic suitability index values for tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus) 2008-2009 (90th percentile), Jan. 2020

This vector dataset provides the climate suitability index values (0-100%) for tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus) for 100 European cities for the years 2008-2009 (P90 - 90th percentile). Aedes Albopictus has become a common occurrence in Southern Europe and transmits diseases such as Zika, dengue and chikungunya. The climatic suitability for tiger mosquito depends on factors such as sufficient amounts of rainfall, high summer temperatures and mild winters. Climate change is anticipated to further facilitate the spread of tiger mosquitoes across Europe by changing temperature and precipitation patterns, thereby increasing the suitable habitat. In the framework of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) SIS European Health, VITO (https://vito.be/en) 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 (aggregated) climate variables to the suitability of a habitat for a given vector species, e.g. for a species to be active a minimum threshold of temperature is required below which the species is not active. Similarly some species cannot overwinter if the winter is too cold (e.g. January temperature lower than a given value). The P90 indicator represents the specific exposure of single cities and is independent of the model domain or size of a city. The 100 European cities for the urban simulations were selected based on user requirements within the health community.