124 research outputs found
Extreme Weather, Chemical Facilities, and Vulnerable Communities in the U.S. Gulf Coast: A Disastrous Combination
No full textUsing atmospheric models to estimate global air pollution mortality
No full textGround-level ozone and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) are associated with premature mortality and can influence air quality on global scales. This work examines the global health impacts of ozone and PM2.5 using concentrations simulated by global chemical transport models (CTMs), which allow full spatial coverage and analysis of hypothetical changes in emissions. Here, previous methods using global models are improved by using cause-specific and country-specific baseline mortality rates, and by using area-weighted average rates where gridcells overlap multiple countries. Using these methods, we estimate 0.7 [plus or minus] 0.3 and 3.7 [plus or minus] 1.0 million global premature deaths annually due to anthropogenic ozone and PM2.5, found as the difference between simulations with and without anthropogenic emissions. PM2.5 mortality estimates are ~50% higher than previous measurement-based estimates based on common assumptions, mainly because rural populations are included, suggesting higher estimates, although the coarsely resolved global atmospheric model may underestimate urban PM2.5 exposures. Estimating the mortality impacts of intercontinental transport of ozone shows that for North America, East Asia, South Asia, and Europe, foreign ozone precursor emission reductions contribute ~30%, 30%, 20%, and >50% of the deaths avoided by reducing emissions in all regions together. For North America and Europe, reducing precursor emissions avoids more deaths outside the source region than within, due mainly to larger foreign populations. Finally, using the MOZART-4 global CTM, we estimate that halving global anthropogenic black carbon (BC) emissions reduces population-weighted average PM2.5 by 542 ng/m3 (1.8%) and avoids 157,000 (95% confidence interval, 120,000-194,000) annual premature deaths globally, with the vast majority occurring within the source region. Over 80% of these deaths occur in Asia, with 50% greater mortality impacts per unit BC emitted for South Asian versus East Asian emissions. Globally, the contribution of residential, industrial, and transportation BC emissions to BC-related mortality is 1.3, 1.2, and 0.6 times each sector's contribution to anthropogenic BC emissions, owing to the degree of co-location with population. Future research should improve upon the many sources of uncertainty, incorporate shifting demographics, and examine the health impacts of realistic emission control technologies, which would affect emissions of multiple species simultaneously
Input data and analysis codes for "Reversal of trends in global fine particulate matter air pollution"
No full textThis dataset contains Input data and analysis codes used for the following article:
Li, C., A. van Donkelaar, M. S. Hammer, E. E. McDuffie, R. T. Burnett, J. V. Spadaro, D. Chatterjee, A. J. Cohen, J. S. Apte, V. A. Southerland, S. C. Anenberg, M. Brauer, & R. V. Martin, Reversal of trends in global fine particulate matter air pollution, submitted, 2023.
Input Data
Baseline mortality data (204 countries and territories, 17 age groups, 6 diseases, 22 years)
Concentration-response functions (GEMM and MRBRT)
PM2.5 exposure for 204 territories and 22 years
Age-specific population for 204 territories and 22 years
Derived Data
Age- and disease-specific PM2.5-attributable Mortality estimates for 204 territories and 22 years.
Sensitivity of PM2.5-attributable Mortality to marginal PM2.5 reduction for 204 territories and 22 years.
Attributable of changes in PM2.5-attributable Mortality (and its sensitivity to marginal PM2.5 reduction) to four driving factors.
Code
Necessary python scripts to verify and replicate analysis results in the manuscript
An Adjoint Sensitivity Framework for Public Health: The Sources of Air Pollution and Their Current and Future Impacts at Both the Urban and National Scale
No full textAir pollution exposure is responsible for millions of premature deaths each year. This large health burden is a concern of policymakers who design local- and national-level mitigation actions to improve air quality and health. Policies informed by an understanding of the sources that contribute to air pollution are better equipped to address this health burden. By characterizing the relationships between emissions, air pollution, and health impacts, emission reductions, including changes associated with decarbonization, can be linked to health benefits. Estimating the sources of air pollution and assessing the impacts of emission changes presents a challenging research objective; air pollution formation is complex, and precursor emissions undergo many physical and chemical processes in the atmosphere. These research and policy challenges are profound; however, the potential societal benefits from addressing them are undeniable. Several approaches are developed that leverage remote-sensing observations, air quality simulations, adjoint calculations, and state-of-the science health impact assessment methods to characterize the sources of air pollution-related health impacts and to assess how changes in anthropogenic emission patterns could impact public health in the future. A second-order contribution calculation is developed to better characterize the non-linear response of ozone to nitrogen oxides. These approaches are applied to a number of different research questions. The air pollution-related health impacts in Brazil associated with fires in the Amazon from 2016-2019 are estimated. The sources associated with urban-scale air pollution-related health impacts in 14 US cities are identified and the benefits associated with radially applied mitigation measures are assessed. Country-scale domestic and imported air quality health impacts are identified and benefits from reductions in transportation and energy generation emissions are estimated. A new domain for the chemical transport model GEOS-Chem and its adjoint is set-up for South America and the decarbonization air quality co-benefits in the city of Santiago, associated with Chile’s nationally determined contributions as part of the Paris Climate Agreement, are estimated.</p
An Adjoint Sensitivity Framework for Public Health: The Sources of Air Pollution and Their Current and Future Impacts at Both the Urban and National Scale
No full textAir pollution exposure is responsible for millions of premature deaths each year. This large health burden is a concern of policymakers who design local- and national-level mitigation actions to improve air quality and health. Policies informed by an understanding of the sources that contribute to air pollution are better equipped to address this health burden. By characterizing the relationships between emissions, air pollution, and health impacts, emission reductions, including changes associated with decarbonization, can be linked to health benefits. Estimating the sources of air pollution and assessing the impacts of emission changes presents a challenging research objective; air pollution formation is complex, and precursor emissions undergo many physical and chemical processes in the atmosphere. These research and policy challenges are profound; however, the potential societal benefits from addressing them are undeniable. Several approaches are developed that leverage remote-sensing observations, air quality simulations, adjoint calculations, and state-of-the science health impact assessment methods to characterize the sources of air pollution-related health impacts and to assess how changes in anthropogenic emission patterns could impact public health in the future. A second-order contribution calculation is developed to better characterize the non-linear response of ozone to nitrogen oxides. These approaches are applied to a number of different research questions. The air pollution-related health impacts in Brazil associated with fires in the Amazon from 2016-2019 are estimated. The sources associated with urban-scale air pollution-related health impacts in 14 US cities are identified and the benefits associated with radially applied mitigation measures are assessed. Country-scale domestic and imported air quality health impacts are identified and benefits from reductions in transportation and energy generation emissions are estimated. A new domain for the chemical transport model GEOS-Chem and its adjoint is set-up for South America and the decarbonization air quality co-benefits in the city of Santiago, associated with Chile’s nationally determined contributions as part of the Paris Climate Agreement, are estimated.</p
Planetary stewardship in an urbanizing world: beyond city limits
No full textCities are rapidly increasing in importance as a major factor shaping the Earth system, and as such must take corresponding responsibility. With currently over half of the world population, cities are supported by resources originating from primarily rural regions that are often located around the world far distant from the urban loci of use. The multiple and complex environmental and social challenges the world faces require interconnected solutions and a coordinated governance approach to planetary stewardship. There is a new opportunity to conceptualize a key component of planetary stewardship as a global system of cities that develop sustainable processes and policies in concert with its non-urban areas. The potential for cities to cooperate as a system and with rural connectivity could not only increase their capacity to effect change and foster stewardship at the planetary scale but also increase their resource security
Improving consistency in estimating future health burdens from environmental risk factors: Case study for ambient air pollution
No full textFuture changes in exposure to risk factors should impact mortality rates and population. However, studies commonly use mortality rates and population projections developed exogenously to the health impact assessment model used to quantify future health burdens attributable to environmental risks that are therefore invariant to projected exposure levels. This impacts the robustness of many future health burden estimates for environmental risk factors. This work describes an alternative methodology that more consistently represents the interaction between risk factor exposure, population and mortality rates, using ambient particulate air pollution (PM2.5) as a case study. A demographic model is described that estimates future population based on projected births, mortality and migration. Mortality rates are disaggregated between the fraction due to PM2.5 exposure and other factors for a historic year, and projected independently. Accounting for feedbacks between future risk factor exposure and population and mortality rates can greatly affect estimated future attributable health burdens. The demographic model estimates much larger PM2.5-attributable health burdens with constant 2019 PM2.5 (∼10.8 million deaths in 2050) compared to a model using exogenous population and mortality rate projections (∼7.3 million), largely due to differences in mortality rate projection methods. Demographic model-projected PM2.5-attributable mortality can accumulate substantially over time. For example, ∼71 million more people are estimated to be alive in 2050 when WHO guidelines (5 µg m−3) are achieved compared to constant 2019 PM2.5 concentrations. Accounting for feedbacks is more important in applications with relatively high future PM2.5 concentrations, and relatively large changes in non-PM2.5 mortality rates
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