Project start: 1.10.2025.

In this interdisciplinary project that connects astrophysics, atmospheric physics and medicine, we will try to deepen the understanding of the connection of human health with the Earth's atmosphere and phenomena in space, and apply the data collected as part of very-high-energy (VHE) gamma astronomy to the characterization of the Earth's atmosphere.

In order to characterize the Earth's atmosphere, we will use historical and new data collected by auxiliary subsystems of the MAGIC and CTAO astroparticle experiments on the Canary Island of La Palma: optical LIDAR, Raman LIDAR, and FRAM. These data, which are a by-product of measurements necessary for the optimal scheduling of observation time of the Cherenkov telescopes in these experiments and for calculating measurement corrections at the analysis level, are already collected as part of our work on fundamental research issues in astrophysics in the study of extreme objects in the Universe. In the part of the project focused on studying the connection between human health and the Earth's atmosphere, we will correlate data on emergency hospital admissions and different clinical diagnoses from the Clinical Hospital Center Rijeka with atmospheric phenomena that create Schumann resonances, which are caused either by radiation coming from space, or local atmospheric phenomena such as thunderstorms. We will use advanced computational methods and machine learning to calculate reliable statistics.

This approach will have a double positive effect on the environment, given that we will use data that has already been collected for other purposes and give it additional value through an interdisciplinary approach, while on the other hand, through the characterization of the Earth's atmosphere we aim to improve the understanding of climate changes and enable the development of strategies to mitigate it.