A review exploring the overarching burden of Zika virus with emphasis on epidemiological case studies from Brazil.

This paper explores the main factors for mosquito-borne transmission of the Zika virus by focusing on environmental, anthropogenic, and social risks. A literature review was conducted bringing together related information from this genre of research from peer-reviewed publications. It was observed that environmental conditions, especially precipitation, humidity, and temperature, played a role in the transmission. Furthermore, anthropogenic factors including sanitation, urbanization, and environmental pollution promote the transmission by affecting the mosquito density. In addition, socioeconomic factors such as poverty as well as social inequality and low-quality housing have also an impact since these are social factors that limit access to certain facilities or infrastructure which, in turn, promote transmission when absent (e.g., piped water and screened windows). Finally, the paper presents short-, mid-, and long-term preventative solutions together with future perspectives. This is the first review exploring the effects of anthropogenic aspects on Zika transmission with a special emphasis in Brazil.

Impacts of teleconnection patterns on South America climate.

Oceanic heat sources disturb the atmosphere, which, to come back to its initial state, disperses waves. These waves affect the climate in remote regions, characterizing the teleconnection patterns. In this study, we describe eight teleconnection patterns that affect South America climate: the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), the Tropical Atlantic Dipole (TAD), the South Atlantic Dipole (SAD), the Southern Annular Mode (SAM), the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), and the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD). Precipitation and winds at 850-hPa anomalies, considering these teleconnection patterns in ENSO neutral periods, are also presented. Overall, southeastern South America and the north sector of the North and Northeast regions of Brazil are the most affected areas by the teleconnection patterns. In general, there is a precipitation dipole pattern between these regions during each teleconnection pattern.

Subtropical cyclones over the oceanic basins: a review.

Subtropical cyclones are hybrid systems presenting a warm core at low levels, as tropical cyclones, and a cold core at upper levels, as extratropical cyclones. Their genesis can be as proper subtropical system or from the transitions (extratropical to subtropical or tropical to subtropical). Subtropical cyclones occur mostly over the sea and generate intense near surface winds with great impacts on human activities and ecosystems. We present a review of the main features, as obtained from observations and numerical simulations, for subtropical cyclone development over the major oceanic basins.