Intercontinental Transport of Air Pollution:  Will Emerging Science Lead to a New Hemispheric Treaty?

Holloway, Tracey; Fiore, Arlene M.; Hastings, Meredith G.

doi:10.1021/es034031g

Cited by 109 publications

(79 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Confidence in these estimates would be increased by resolving uncertainties, including domestic O 3 responses to emission reductions and O 3 CRFs around the world. Despite uncertainties, our results point to widespread impacts of emission reductions, suggesting that collective international agreements over larger spatial scales may be needed to address local mortalities due to O 3 pollution (24,25).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 83%

Intercontinental Impacts of Ozone Pollution on Human Mortality

Anenberg

West

Fiore

et al. 2009

Environ. Sci. Technol.

134

135

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Ozone exposure is associated with negative health impacts, including premature mortality. Observations and modeling studies demonstrate that emissions from one continent influence ozone air quality over other continents. We estimate the premature mortalities avoided from surface ozone decreases obtained via combined 20% reductions of anthropogenic nitrogen oxide, nonmethane volatile organic compound, and carbon monoxide emissions in North America (NA), East Asia (EA), South Asia (SA), and Europe (EU). We use estimates of ozone responses to these emission changes from several atmospheric chemical transport models combined with a health impact function. Foreign emission reductions contribute approximately 30%, 30%, 20%, and >50% of the mortalities avoided by reducing precursor emissions in all regions together in NA, EA, SA, and EU, respectively. Reducing emissions in NA and EU avoids more mortalities outside the source region than within, owing in part to larger populations in foreign regions. Lowering the global methane abundance by 20% reduces mortality most in SA, followed by EU, EA, and NA. For some source-receptor pairs, there is greater uncertainty in our estimated avoided mortalities associated with the modeled ozone responses to emission changes than with the health impact function parameters.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 83%

Intercontinental Impacts of Ozone Pollution on Human Mortality

Anenberg

West

Fiore

et al. 2009

Environ. Sci. Technol.

134

135

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“…All these effects depend on aerosol composition or type. As such, the long-range transport of air pollution has been an active topic of scientific research for several decades and has also been debated for formulating environmental policies and treaties (Holloway et al, 2003). One of the most recent coordinated efforts is the establishment of the Task Force on Hemispheric Transport of Air Pollutants (HTAP) by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, aiming to understand the growing body of scientific evidence of intercontinental transport and assess its impacts on air quality, climate, and ecosystems (HTAP, 2010).…”

Section: Aerosol Intercontinental Transport and Its Environmental Impmentioning

confidence: 99%

Satellite perspective of aerosol intercontinental transport: From qualitative tracking to quantitative characterization

Remer

Kahn

et al. 2013

Atmospheric Research

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Evidence of aerosol intercontinental transport (ICT) is both widespread and compelling. Model simulations suggest that ICT could significantly affect regional air quality and climate, but the broad inter-model spread of results underscores a need of constraining model simulations with measurements. Satellites have inherent advantages over in situ measurements to characterize aerosol ICT, because of their spatial and temporal coverage. Significant progress in satellite remote sensing of aerosol properties during the Earth Observing System (EOS) era offers the opportunity to increase quantitative characterization and estimates of aerosol ICT beyond the capability of pre-EOS era satellites that could only qualitatively track aerosol plumes. EOS satellites also observe emission strengths and injection heights of some aerosols, aerosol precursors, and aerosol-related gases, which can help characterize aerosol ICT. We review how the current generation of satellite measurements have been used to (1) characterize the evolution of aerosol plumes (e.g., both horizontal and vertical transport, and properties) on an episodic basis, (2) understand the seasonal and inter-annual variations of aerosol ICT and their control factors, (3) estimate the export and import fluxes of aerosols, and (4) evaluate and constrain model simulations. Substantial effort is needed to further explore an integrated approach using measurements from on-orbit satellites (e.g., A-Train synergy) for observational characterization and model constraint of aerosol intercontinental transport and to develop advanced sensors for future missions.

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“…The atmospheric lifetime of ozone ranges from a few days in the boundary layer to weeks in the free troposphere. Ozone and its anthropogenic precursors ventilated from the source continents and transported on hemispheric scales in the free troposphere add a significant background to surface ozone which is of increasing concern for meeting air quality standards (Holloway et al, 2003; United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of climate change on air quality

Jacob

Winner

2009

Atmospheric Environment

1,606

1,232

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a b s t r a c tAir quality is strongly dependent on weather and is therefore sensitive to climate change. Recent studies have provided estimates of this climate effect through correlations of air quality with meteorological variables, perturbation analyses in chemical transport models (CTMs), and CTM simulations driven by general circulation model (GCM) simulations of 21st-century climate change. We review these different approaches and their results. The future climate is expected to be more stagnant, due to a weaker global circulation and a decreasing frequency of mid-latitude cyclones. The observed correlation between surface ozone and temperature in polluted regions points to a detrimental effect of warming. Coupled GCM-CTM studies find that climate change alone will increase summertime surface ozone in polluted regions by 1-10 ppb over the coming decades, with the largest effects in urban areas and during pollution episodes. This climate penalty means that stronger emission controls will be needed to meet a given air quality standard. Higher water vapor in the future climate is expected to decrease the ozone background, so that pollution and background ozone have opposite sensitivities to climate change. The effect of climate change on particulate matter (PM) is more complicated and uncertain than for ozone. Precipitation frequency and mixing depth are important driving factors but projections for these variables are often unreliable. GCM-CTM studies find that climate change will affect PM concentrations in polluted environments by AE0.1-1 mg m À3 over the coming decades. Wildfires fueled by climate change could become an increasingly important PM source. Major issues that should be addressed in future research include the ability of GCMs to simulate regional air pollution meteorology and its sensitivity to climate change, the response of natural emissions to climate change, and the atmospheric chemistry of isoprene. Research needs to be undertaken on the effect of climate change on mercury, particularly in view of the potential for a large increase in mercury soil emissions driven by increased respiration in boreal ecosystems.

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Intercontinental Transport of Air Pollution: Will Emerging Science Lead to a New Hemispheric Treaty?

Cited by 109 publications

References 44 publications

Intercontinental Impacts of Ozone Pollution on Human Mortality

Intercontinental Impacts of Ozone Pollution on Human Mortality

Satellite perspective of aerosol intercontinental transport: From qualitative tracking to quantitative characterization

Effect of climate change on air quality

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