Identification

Title

Air pollution and associated human mortality: The role of air pollutant emissions, climate change and methane concentration increases from the preindustrial period to present

Abstract

Increases in surface ozone (O₃) and fine particulate matter (≤2.5 μm aerodynamic diameter, PM2.5) are associated with excess premature human mortalities. We estimate changes in surface O₃ and PM2.5 from pre-industrial (1860) to present (2000) and the global present-day (2000) premature human mortalities associated with these changes. We extend previous work to differentiate the contribution of changes in three factors: emissions of short-lived air pollutants, climate change, and increased methane (CH4) concentrations, to air pollution levels and associated premature mortalities. We use a coupled chemistry-climate model in conjunction with global population distributions in 2000 to estimate exposure attributable to concentration changes since 1860 from each factor. Attributable mortalities are estimated using health impact functions of long-term relative risk estimates for O₃ and PM2.5 from the epidemiology literature. We find global mean surface PM2.5 and health-relevant O₃ (defined as the maximum 6-month mean of 1-h daily maximum O₃ in a year) have increased by 8 ± 0.16 μg m⁻³ and 30 ± 0.16 ppbv (results reported as annual average ±standard deviation of 10-yr model simulations), respectively, over this industrial period as a result of combined changes in emissions of air pollutants (EMIS), climate (CLIM) and CH₄ concentrations (TCH4). EMIS, CLIM and TCH4 cause global population-weighted average PM2.5 (O₃) to change by +7.5 ± 0.19 μg m⁻³ (+25 ± 0.30 ppbv), +0.4 ± 0.17 μg m⁻³ (+0.5 ± 0.28 ppbv), and 0.04 ± 0.24 μg m⁻³ (+4.3 ± 0.33 ppbv), respectively. Total global changes in PM2.5 are associated with 1.5 (95% confidence interval, CI, 1.2-1.8) million cardiopulmonary mortalities and 95 (95% CI, 44-144) thousand lung cancer mortalities annually and changes in O₃ are associated with 375 (95% CI, 129-592) thousand respiratory mortalities annually. Most air pollution mortality is driven by changes in emissions of short-lived air pollutants and their precursors (95% and 85% of mortalities from PM2.5 and O₃ respectively). However, changing climate and increasing CH₄ concentrations also contribute to premature mortality associated with air pollution globally (by up to 5% and 15%, respectively). In some regions, the contribution of climate change and increased CH₄ together are responsible for more than 20% of the respiratory mortality associated with O₃ exposure. We find the interaction between climate change and atmospheric chemistry has influenced atmospheric composition and human mortality associated with industrial air pollution. Our study highlights the benefits to air quality and human health of CH₄ mitigation as a component of future air pollution control policy.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d77w6d1z

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

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Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2013-02-04T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact