Future Fire Impacts on Smoke Concentrations, Visibility, and Health in the Contiguous United States

Autor: Ford, B., Val Martin, M., Zelasky, S. E., Fischer, E. V., Anenberg, S. C., Heald, C. L., Pierce, J. R.
Přispěvatelé: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2018
Předmět:
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
Epidemiology
Fine particulate
Health
Toxicology and Mutagenesis
lcsh:Environmental protection
Pollution: Urban
Regional and Global
Megacities and Urban Environment
Atmospheric Composition and Structure
010501 environmental sciences
Management
Monitoring
Policy and Law
Biogeosciences
01 natural sciences
Oceanography: Biological and Chemical
Paleoceanography
lcsh:TD169-171.8
Global Change
Waste Management and Disposal
Air quality index
Research Articles
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
Water Science and Technology
Aerosols
Smoke
Global and Planetary Change
Absolute number
Marine Pollution
Visibility (geometry)
Public Health
Environmental and Occupational Health
Geohealth
Aerosols and Particles
Pollution
Oceanography: General
Premature death
Pollution: Urban and Regional
13. Climate action
General Circulation Model
Archaeological Geology
Environmental science
Physical geography
Health Impact
Natural Hazards
Coupled Models of the Climate System
Research Article
Zdroj: GeoHealth, Vol 2, Iss 8, Pp 229-247 (2018)
GeoHealth
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
ISSN: 2471-1403
Popis: Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) from U.S. anthropogenic sources is decreasing. However, previous studies have predicted that PM2.5 emissions from wildfires will increase in the midcentury to next century, potentially offsetting improvements gained by continued reductions in anthropogenic emissions. Therefore, some regions could experience worse air quality, degraded visibility, and increases in population-level exposure. We use global climate model simulations to estimate the impacts of changing fire emissions on air quality, visibility, and premature deaths in the middle and late 21st century. We find that PM2.5 concentrations will decrease overall in the contiguous United States (CONUS) due to decreasing anthropogenic emissions (total PM2.5 decreases by 3% in Representative Concentration Pathway [RCP] 8.5 and 34% in RCP4.5 by 2100), but increasing fire-related PM2.5 (fire-related PM2.5 increases by 55% in RCP4.5 and 190% in RCP8.5 by 2100) offsets these benefits and causes increases in total PM2.5 in some regions. We predict that the average visibility will improve across the CONUS, but fire-related PM2.5 will reduce visibility on the worst days in western and southeastern U.S. regions. We estimate that the number of deaths attributable to total PM2.5 will decrease in both the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios (from 6% to 4-5%), but the absolute number of premature deaths attributable to fire-related PM2.5 will double compared to early 21st century. We provide the first estimates of future smoke health and visibility impacts using a prognostic land-fire model. Our results suggest the importance of using realistic fire emissions in future air quality projections. ©2018
Joint Fire Science Program (grant 13‐1‐01‐4)
NASA Applied Sciences Program (grant NNX15AG35G)
Climate Simulation Laboratory at NCAR's Computational and Information Systems Laboratory (CISL) Large University Computing Grant
NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates Site in Climate Science at CSU (cooperative agreement AGS‐1461270)
Leverhulme Research Centre Award (RC‐2015‐029)
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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