Preliminary exploratory impact assessment of short-lived pollutants over the Danube Basin

This report is presented as deliverable D2.3 of work package 2 of the Danube Air Nexus. It presents the results of an exploratory impact assessment of short-lived air pollutant emissions on human health, crop production and near-term climate with a focus on the Danube basin. We use a global reduced-form source receptor air quality model TM5-FASST and a recent global pollutant emission inventory (HTAP V2, 2014) to make an attribution by sector of the various impacts and to explore the challenges and opportunities for possible. Preliminary results show that trans-boundary pollution is significantly contributing to population exposure to PM2.5 in the Danube area. Dominating polluting sectors are residential sector and agriculture. We estimate that annually 170000 premature mortalities can be attributed to PM2.5 pollution in the Danube area, and annual crop losses add up to an economic value of nearly 1 billion US$. This analysis is a first step in a more detailed, country-wise analysis that will be carried out as a follow-up of this report, with an improved version of the model and specifically designed scenarios for the Danube Basin.JRC.H.2-Air and Climat

A simple non-linear analytical relationship between aerosol accumulation number and sub-micron volume, explaining their observed ratio in the clean and polluted marine boundary layer

We propose an analytical expression for the relation between aerosol accumulation number and sub-micron volume over the marine boundary layer (MBL), based on a simple balance equation. By providing appropriate source and sink terms which account for entrainment, coagulation, in-cloud scavenging and condensational growth, the model is able to reproduce the observed ratio between MBL particles larger than 80 nm diameter (as a proxy for accumulation mode number) and submicron aerosol volume, from freshly polluted to background conditions. Entrainment and coagulation are essential in predicting the observed ratio. Budget and lifetime calculations show that, due to relatively low source rates of oceanic non-sea-salt-sulfate and sea-salt, the anthropogenic signature in aerosol volume remains significant even after 8 days of MBL transport

Integrate health into decision-making to foster climate action

The COVID-19 pandemic reveals that societies place a high value on healthy lives. Leveraging this momentum to establish a more central role for human health in the policy process will provide further impetus to a sustainable transformation of energy and food systems

Global Energy and Climate Outlook 2017: How climate policies improve air quality

This study shows that achieving the climate change mitigation target of staying below 2°C temperature rise is possible technically – thanks to an acceleration of decarbonisation trends, an increased electrification of final demand and large changes in the primary energy mix that include a phase out of coal and a reduction of oil and gas – and is consistent with economic growth. It yields co-benefits via improved air quality – including avoided deaths, reduction of respiratory diseases and agricultural productivity improvement – that largely offset the cost of climate change mitigation. These co-benefits arise without extra investment costs and are additional to the benefits of avoiding global warming and its impact on the economy.JRC.C.6-Economics of Climate Change, Energy and Transpor

Support to the review of the Thematic Strategy on Air Pollution: JRC’s contribution to the 2nd Stakeholder meeting January 2012

Although efforts of the EU to reduce air pollution have led to important reductions of emissions within the Member States, millions of people are still exposed to air pollutants at concentration levels that may endanger their health and air pollution is still causing relevant damage to crops and ecosystems. On this background, the European Commission has decided to review its Thematic Strategy for Air Pollution (TSAP) by 2013 at latest, and do this through a consultation process, led by DG ENV, with a broad group of stakeholders. The present report contains the presentations made by JRC staff at the second Stakeholder Meeting, held in January 2012JRC.H.2-Air and Climat

Global trends of methane emissions and their impacts on ozone concentrations

CH4 is an important greenhouse gas and also a precursor of the air pollutant O3. About 60% of the current global methane is emitted by sources like agriculture, landfills and wastewater, and the production and pipeline transport of fossil fuels, while ca. 40 % is from natural sources. At world level, CH4 emissions and concentrations are still increasing, raising concerns for air quality and climate change. This study, building on evidence from observations and modelling, suggests that CH4 emission reductions can play a key-role in further reducing O3 in Europe and in the world. Since Europe’s contribution to global CH4 emissions is currently only about 6 %, global cooperation to reduce CH4 in countries and regions in- and outside of the EU, will also be essential to reduce related O3 effects in Europe and the world.JRC.C.5-Air and Climat

Climate and Air Quality Impacts of Combined Climate Change and Air Pollution Policy Scenarios

This report describes an assessment of the co-benefits for air pollution of recently developed climate mitigation scenarios that inform the European Union policy making. The climate mitigation scenarios were obtained with the POLES equilibrium model for a business-as-usual and greenhouse gas reduction case. In the present work, these scenarios were expanded to air pollution emissions. The resulting set of global -spatially and sector disaggregated- air pollution emissions were evaluated with the global chemistry transport model TM5, to calculate levels of particulate matter and ozone. Subsequently, air pollution impacts on human health, ecosystems and climate were evaluated. The resulting set of four scenarios thus reflect various combinations of worldwide air pollution and climate policies: BAU (¿no further climate and air pollution policies since the 2000 base-year¿); CARB (¿climate policy only¿), BAP (¿no further climate policy, but progressive air pollution policies, to address worldwide increasing levels of air pollution) and CAP (¿combination of ambitious climate and air pollution policies¿). The implementation of a global climate policy (CARB) has substantial co-benefits for reducing air pollutant emissions. Compared to BAU, in 2050 global emissions of SO2 are reduced by ca. 75 %, NOx by 55 %, CO (40 %) and other pollutants VOC, OC and BC) about 25% %. These emission reductions result from cleaner technologies and decreased fuel demand, and correspond to a CO2 emission reduction of more than 60 %. Advanced air pollution abatement technologies can obtain similar air pollutant reductions ranging between 35 % (NOx), 45 % (OC, BC), 60 % (SO2) and 70% (CO), however in this case the CO2 emissions reach unabated levels of 55 Pg CO2/yr. The combined air pollution and climate policy case (CAP) further reduces BAP air pollution emissions by 10-30 %. Noticeable are the decreases of methane emissions by ca. 60 %, which have important impacts on ozone air quality and climate. The environmental benefits of the emission reductions are substantial. In 2050, average global life expectancy increases by 3.2 months/person for BAP (compared to BAU) and further increases by 3.7 to 6.9 months/person if additionally climate policies are introduced (CAP). Compared to 2000, only the CAP scenario leads to global improvement of life-expectancy (by about 3 months/person), while all other scenarios lead to higher particulate concentration and lower life expectancies, mainly driven by pollution developments in South and East Asia. These improvements in CAP are due to decreasing concentrations of primary (OC, BC) and secondary (SO4, NO3) aerosol. This work shows that combining air pollution and climate policies is in some regions the only way to stabilize or decrease the levels of air pollution and reducing impacts on human health. The global average life expectancy, however, masks large regional differences: e.g. current and future levels of air pollution in Asia are much larger than in Europe or the United States. Crop losses due to ozone are reduced by 4.7 % by implementing progressive air pollution policies, and could be reduced by another 2 %, by introducing additional climate policies. Climate policies target at limiting long-term (2100) climate change. On the intermediate time-scales (2030-2050), however, there might be important trade-offs to be considered in climate and air pollution policies, since reducing particulate matter and precursor (especially sulfur) emissions, are likely to lead to a net positive radiative forcing and a warming of climate. Since reductions of particulate matter and ozone are necessary to protect human health and vegetation, combined air pollution and climate policies are more beneficial for both climate and air pollution than stand-alone policies. There is scope to preferentially mitigate emissions of Black Carbon and methane, which is beneficial for climate and human health.JRC.DDG.H.2-Climate chang

Household Cooking with Solid Fuels Contributes to Ambient PM2.5 Air Pollution and the Burden of Disease

Approximately 2.8 billion people cook with solid fuels, and research has focused on the health impacts of household exposures to fine particulate (PM2.5). Here, as part of the 2010 Global Burden of Disease project, we evaluate the impact of household cooking with solid fuels on regional ambient PM2.5 pollution. We estimated the proportion of ambient PM2.5 (APM2.5) from PM2.5-cooking for the years 1990, 2005, and 2010 in 176 countries, and use these to estimate ambient concentrations of PM2.5 attributable to household cooking with solid fuels (PM2.5-cooking). We used an energy supply-driven emissions model (GAINS) to calculate the fraction of total household PM2.5 emissions produced by cooking with solid fuels, by country. These findings were multiplied by the proportion of total APM2.5 attributable to household emissions, as calculated with the source-receptor model TM5-FASST, to obtain the proportion of total APM2.5 from PM2.5-cooking. In 2010, the proportion of APM2.5 from PM2.5-cooking ranged from 0% of total APM2.5 in six higher-income regions, to 44% (8 µg/m3 of 18 µg/m3 16 total) in Southern sub-Saharan Africa. PM2.5-cooking constituted >10% of APM2.5 in eight regions with 4 billion people, with a global mean of 14%. Globally, the mean population-weighted outdoor air pollution contribution of household cooking was 4 µg/m3 , with the highest contribution of 10 µg/m3 in South Asia. We conclude that PM2.5 emissions from household cooking constitute an important portion of APM2.5 concentrations in many regions, including India and China. Efforts to improve ambient air quality will be hindered if household cooking conditions are not addressed.JRC.H.2-Air and Climat

Do environmental factors such as weather conditions and air pollution influence COVID-19 outbreaks?

The first major outbreaks of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) were seen in a narrow latitude band in areas sharing similar meteorological conditions and having high levels of air pollution. A large number of scientific studies have addressed the possible relationship between meteorological conditions, air pollution and COVID-19 pandemics. In this report we provide a critical overview of selected studies. We further evaluate the importance of air pollution for the transmission of COVID-19 by aerosols in the ambient outdoor conditions, provide an estimate of the upper bound for the impact of air pollution on the COVID-19 mortality and maps showing the probability of the occurrence of potentially favourable environmental conditions over Europe during the year.JRC.C.5-Air and Climat

Observations of aerosols in the free troposphere and marine boundary layer of the subtropical Northeast Atlantic: discussion of processes determining their size distribution

During July 1994, submicron aerosol size distributions were measured at two sites on Tenerife, Canary Islands. One station was located in the free troposphere (FT), the other in the marine boundary layer (MBL). Transport toward these two sites was strongly decoupled: the FT was first affected by dust and sulfate-laden air masses advecting from North Africa and later by clean air masses originating over the North Atlantic, whereas the MBL was always subject to the northeasterly trade wind circulation. In the FT the submicron aerosol distribution was predominantly monomodal with a geometric mean diameter of 120 nm and 55 nm during dusty and clean conditions, respectively. The relatively small diameter during the clean conditions indicates that the aerosol originated in the upper troposphere rather than over continental areas or in the lower stratosphere. During dusty conditions the physical and chemical properties of the submicron aerosol suggest that it has an anthropogenic origin over southern Europe and that it remains largely externally mixed with the supermicron mineral dust particles during its transport over North Africa to Tenerife. Apart from synoptic variations, a strong diurnal variation in the aerosol size distribution is observed at the FT site, characterized by a strong daytime mode of ultrafine particles. This is interpreted as being the result of photoinduced nucleation in the upslope winds, which are perturbed by anthropogenic and biogenic emissions on the island. No evidence was found for nucleation occurring in the undisturbed FT. The MBL site was not strongly affected by European pollution during the period of the measurements. The MBL aerosol size distribution was bimodal, but the relative concentration of Aitken and accumulation mode varied strongly. The accumulation mode can be related to cloud processing of the Aitken mode but also to pollution aerosol which was advected within the MBL or entrained from the FT. No bursts of nucleation were observed within the MBL