Long-term,consistent scenarios of emissions,deposition, and climate change in Europe

The aim of this study was to develop consistent scenarios of emissions, climate change and regional air pollution to enable an integrated analysis of the linkage between climate change and regional air pollution in Europe. An integrated modeling framework was developed for this purpose. The framework integrates state-of-the-art models and concepts from the area of climate change and regional air pollution and was supplemented by new modules (e.g. modeling long-term NH₃ emissions in Europe, modeling dispersion and transformation of air pollutants under climate change).Consistent climate and air pollution policies were derived, both driven by the desire to achieve certain environmental goals. According to an analysis of scenarios with various combinations of climate and regional air pollution policies the quantitatively most relevant interactions are the effect of climate change policies on the energy mix and the resulting air pollution emissions. In the long-term the global SO₂ emissions are expected to decrease (again), accordingly their effect on climate will be minor. Tentatively it can be concluded that for regional air pollution the development of the air pollutant emissions is more important than the effect of climate change on the dispersion and chemical transformation of air pollutants.     

An integrated assessment of regional air pollution and climate change in Europe: findings of the AIR-CLIM Project

This paper presents results of an assessment of the linkages between regional air pollution and climate change in Europe (the AIR-CLIM Project). The main research tool was an integrated modeling framework and the main product was a consistent set of long-term scenarios covering Europe between 1995 and 2100. Scenarios consisted of trends in emissions, acid deposition, nitrogen deposition and climate change. Critical loads and critical levels were used to assess the impacts of deposition to forest soils and a new analogous concept of “critical climate change” was developed to assess the impacts of climate change. Taking into consideration the limitations of the scope and models used in the study, preliminary conclusions were: (1) regional air pollution and climate change may be fairly weakly coupled in the natural environment, i.e. climate change was not found to have a large impact on the sensitivity of forest ecosystems to regional air pollution, nor on the distribution of deposition; nor did regional air pollution (in the form of sulfate aerosols) have a significant impact on climate change in Europe; (2) however, regional air pollution and climate change may be strongly coupled in the “policy” environment. It was estimated that virtually all of Europe at mid-century might be affected by either regional air pollution or climate change, or both, and this will require a strong policy response. Moreover, the indirect effects of climate policies were found to reduce the costs of controlling air pollution emissions by more than 50%, suggesting a strong potential financial linkage between policies to reduce greenhouse gas and air pollution emissions.     

空气污染对气候变化影响与反馈的研究评述

气候变化和空气污染都是人类面临的重要环境问题,其影响与反馈已成为空气污染和气候变化领域的研究热点. 总结了空气污染与气候变化相互作用机理,系统梳理了国内外有关空气污染对气候变化影响及反馈的研究成果,并且重点评述了黑碳和硫酸盐气溶胶辐射强迫及其气候效应、气候变化对近地面臭氧和颗粒物影响等领域的研究进展. 分析指出,现阶段尚没有一个能够综合考虑气象条件、排放源、下垫面等诸多因子对空气污染的影响机理过程模型,无法定量描述大气组分在不同气象条件作用下的演变过程等. 提出未来研究中应深化对机理机制的认识,减少模式的不确定性,加强在排放清单的编制、立体观测网的构建、互馈机理的试验、模式的集成耦合等方面的研究.      

区域气象条件和减排对空气质量改善的贡献评估

区域气象条件和减排与空气质量的变化关系密切.区域污染天气的发生不只受人为排放的影响,其与气象条件也密切有关.我国地处全球的主要季风气候区,大气环流具有明显的季风气候变化特征,区域气象条件受年际气候变化影响显著.研究通过分析不同气候条件下京津冀地区、成渝地区、长三角和珠三角城市群2001～2018年主要气象要素及其污染天...     

Developing China's roadmap for air quality improvement: A review on technology development and future prospects

Air pollution control policies in China have been experiencing profound changes, highlighting a strategic transformation from total pollutant emission control to air quality improvement, along with the shifting targets starting from acid rain and NO_x emissions to PM_2.5 pollution, and then the emerging O₃ challenges. The marvelous achievements have been made with the dramatic decrease of SO₂ emission and fundamental improvement of PM_2.5 concentration. Despite these achievements, China has proposed Beautiful China target through 2035 and the goal of 2030 carbon peak and 2060 carbon neutrality, which impose stricter requirements on air quality and synergistic mitigation with Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. Against this background, an integrated multi-objective and multi-benefit roadmap is required to provide decision support for China's long-term air quality improvement strategy. This paper systematically reviews the technical system for developing the air quality improvement roadmap, which was integrated from the research output of China's National Key R&D Program for Research on Atmospheric Pollution Factors and Control Technologies (hereafter Special NKP), covering mid- and long-term air quality target setting techniques, quantitative analysis techniques for emission reduction targets corresponding to air quality targets, and pathway optimization techniques for realizing reduction targets. The experience and lessons derived from the reviews have implications for the reformation of China's air quality improvement roadmap in facing challenges of synergistic mitigation of PM_2.5 and O₃, and the coupling with climate change mitigation.     

A policy review of synergies and trade-offs in South African climate change mitigation and air pollution control strategies

Climate change mitigation and air quality management are mostly addressed separately in South African legal acts and policies. This approach is not always coherent, especially in the context of other serious issues South Africa is facing, such as poverty alleviation. Policies implemented to mitigate climate change might increase negative health affects due to unanticipated outcomes (e.g. increased local air pollution), and these indirect consequences must therefore be taken into account when devising mitigation strategies. However, greenhouse gas mitigation policies can also have co-benefits and positive impacts on local air pollution. An evidence-based approach that takes into account greenhouse gas emissions, ambient air pollutants, economic factors (affordability, cost optimisation), social factors (poverty alleviations, public health benefits), and political acceptability is needed tackle these challenges. A proposal is made that use of an integrated climate/air pollution techno-economic optimising model, such as the Greenhouse Gas and Air Pollution Synergies (GAINS) model, may provide a rational decision support tool to guide policy makers into effective strategies for combined Climate Change and Air Quality mitigation measures.     

Co-benefits of post-2012 global climate mitigation policies

This paper provides an analysis of co-benefits for traditional air pollutants made possible through global climate policies using the Greenhouse Gas and Air Pollution Interactions and Synergies (GAINS) model in the time horizon up to 2050. The impact analysis is based on projections of energy consumption provided by the Prospective Outlook for the Long term Energy System (POLES) model for a scenario without any global greenhouse gas mitigation efforts, and for a 2°C climate policy scenario which assumes internationally coordinated action to mitigate climate change. Outcomes of the analysis are reported globally and for key world regions: the European Union (EU), China, India and the United States. The assessment takes into account current air pollution control legislation in each country. Expenditures on air pollution control under the global climate mitigation regime are reduced in 2050 by 250 billion € when compared to the case without climate measures. Around one third of financial co-benefits estimated world-wide in this study by 2050 occur in China, while an annual cost saving of 35 billion (Euros) € is estimated for the EU if the current air pollution legislation and climate policies are adopted in parallel. Health impacts of air pollution are quantified in terms of loss of life expectancy related to the exposure from anthropogenic emissions of fine particles, as well as in terms of premature mortality due to ground-level ozone. For example in China, current ambient concentrations of particulate matter are responsible for about 40 months-losses in the average life expectancy. In 2050, the climate strategies reduce this indicator by 50 %. Decrease of ozone concentrations estimated for the climate scenario might save nearly 20,000 cases of premature death per year. Similarly significant are reductions of impacts on ecosystems due to acidification and eutrophication.     

Moving towards ambitious climate policies: Monetised health benefits from improved air quality could offset mitigation costs in Europe

Air quality and related health effects are not only affected by policies directly addressed at air pollution but also by other environmental strategies such as climate mitigation. This study addresses how different climate policy pathways indirectly bear upon air pollution in terms of improved human health in Europe. To this end, we put in perspective mitigation costs and monetised health benefits of reducing PM_2.5 (particles less than 2.5 μm in diameter) and ozone concentrations.Air quality in Europe and related health impacts were assessed using a comprehensive modelling chain, based on global and regional climate and chemistry-transport models together with a health impact assessment tool. This allows capturing both the impact of climate policy on emissions of air pollutants and the geophysical impact of climate change on air quality.Results are presented for projections at the 2050 horizon, for a set of consistent air pollution and climate policy scenarios, combined with population data from the UN's World Population Prospects, and are expressed in terms of morbidity and mortality impacts of PM_2.5 and ozone pollution and their monetised damage equivalent.The analysis shows that enforcement of current European air quality policies would effectively reduce health impacts from PM_2.5 in Europe even in the absence of climate policies (life years lost from the exposure to PM_2.5 decrease by 78% between 2005 and 2050 in the reference scenario), while impacts for ozone depend on the ambition level of international climate policies. A move towards stringent climate policies on a global scale, in addition to limiting global warming, creates co-benefits in terms of reduced health impacts (68% decrease in life years lost from the exposure to PM_2.5 and 85% decrease in premature deaths from ozone in 2050 in the mitigation scenario relative to the reference scenario) and air pollution cost savings (77%) in Europe. These co-benefits are found to offset at least 85% of the additional cost of climate policy in this region.     

Air quality management in China: Issues, challenges, and options

This article analyzed the control progress and current status of air quality,identified the major air pollution issues and challenges in future,proposed the long-term air pollution control targets,and ...     

The determinants mostly disclosed by companies that are members of the Carbon Disclosure Project

Concerns about climate change as a result of anthropic actions have led to an increase in the volume of information disclosed about it in the reports of companies that are members of the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). In this context, the factors most disclosed remain obscure due to both the complexity of climate change impacts and the stakeholders’ different interests. This study aims to identify which factors are most disclosed in the reports of companies that are members of CDP. For this purpose, it is necessary to investigate if the factors indicated by managers and experts are the main ones disclosed in the reports of Brazilian companies that are members of CDP, as well as to identify which companies stand out in climate change disclosure based on these factors. To this end, 463 reports submitted by 48 companies between 2014 and 2016 were examined and 32 factors were investigated using the NVivo® software. Some companies submitted reports with unified titles, which reduced the sample. The results indicate that certain factors—prevention of pollution, prevention of loss, management of environmental assets, volume of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and climate change strategy—account for 50.03% of the total volume of information disclosed about climate change. The main lesson learned from this research is that climate change mitigation strategy is strongly supported by the evidence of corporate annual reports, and it has relation with the following determinant factors: pollution prevention, loss prevention, environmental asset management, GHG emissions, and the strategy chosen by the companies to deal with climate change. Due to the low volume of research related to loss prevention and pollution prevention, we have identified that little attention has been paid to these items. Based on our results, we recommend that climate change mitigation strategies begin to consider these determinant factors in their structure because both have a strong influence in demonstrating how companies are managing these factors for stakeholders. Therefore, companies can benefit from this data to manage their resources for the maintenance of the social contract (legitimacy) through the factors most disclosed, especially companies with lower scores on the scale of ranking presented. Hence, stakeholders can have access to more information on strategies that mitigate climate change and help companies improve the disclosure of the actions that contribute to reduction of GHG emissions.     

中国地区二次有机气溶胶的时空分布特征和来源分析

二次有机气溶胶(SOA)由于其在大气污染、气候变化与人体健康方面的影响,是我国大气环境中一种重要的污染物.确定中国SOA分布规律以及产生来源是大气污染防治的前提.利用全球化学传输模型(Model for Ozone and Related Chemical Tracers,Version 4,MOZART4)并集成多相SOA参数化方案,模拟了中国地区SOA的时空分布,并按前体物分区域进行了来源分析.结果表明,受SOA前体物排放分布的影响,中国地区的SOA主要分布在东部和南部地区,并且夏季SOA产量是冬季产量的2.5倍.中国地区分布的SOA由人为源排放产生占55%,高于自然源(45%);并且境内排放贡献了我国SOA产量的77%,主要影响东部近地面大气的浓度分布.境外排放主要影响我国西部地区,尤其是对高空SOA分布影响显著.     

Road transport and urban air quality in China

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河北省2013~2020年大气污染治理进程中的减污降碳协同效益

当前,我国面临着大气污染治理与碳减排的双重挑战,"减污降碳"成为了社会经济绿色转型的重要抓手.大气污染物和CO₂排放清单是"减污降碳"工作的基础支撑,但已有研究存在着物种覆盖不全、源类体系不一、时间范围较窄等问题.基于统一的源分类体系与源排放表征技术,建立了河北省2013~2020年排放清单,据此分析了排放的总量趋势、结构演变、变化驱动、协同效益和区域分布.研究期内,河北省取得了社会经济发展与人为源排放控制的双赢,SO₂排放在"大气十条"期间下降速度较快,VOCs和NH₃排放在"蓝天保卫战"期间减排效果更好,NO_x和PM_2.5排放的下降速度相对稳定,CO₂排放略有上升.燃煤治理有效削减了大气污染物和CO₂排放,重点行业超低排放改造降低了SO₂、NO_x和PM_2.5排放,但VOCs治理力度有待提升.电力源和民用源实现了大气污染物与CO₂的协同减排,散煤治理从源头优化了能源结构,使得民用源具有更高的减排协同度.河北省"减污降碳"的重点区域为石家庄、唐山、邯郸、保定和廊坊.研究提出的方法与结论可为区域"减污降碳"工作提供技术借鉴与决策参考.     

Industrial and wildfire aerosol pollution over world heritage Lake Baikal

Lake Baikal is the biggest reservoir of fresh water with unique flora and fauna; presently it is negatively affected by climate change, water warming, industrial emissions, shipping, touristic activities, and Siberian forest fires. The assessment of air pollution - related Baikal's ecosystem damage is an unsolved problem. Ship, based expedition exploring the Baikal atmospheric aerosol loading, was performed over the lake area in July 2018. We combine the aerosol near - water and vertical distributions over the Lake Baikal basin with meteorological observations and air mass transportation simulations. Lidar sounding of aerosol fields in the troposphere assesses the atmospheric background in the pristine areas and the pollution during fire-affected periods. Aerosol optical properties (scattering and spectral absorption) converted to the particle number size, black carbon (BC) mass, and Absorption Angstrom Exponent (AAE) provide the inside into aerosol characterization. Transport of industrial emissions from Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk regions, and wildfire plumes from Republic of Yakutia relates the pollution sources to the increased concentrations of fine particle numbers, PM₁₀ and BC mass over Southern and Northern/Central Baikal, respectively. The highest PM₁₀ and BC are associated to the harbor and touristic areas of intensive shipping and residential biomass burning. Deposition estimates applied to aerosol data exhibit the pollution fluxes to water surface over the whole Baikal area. AAE marks the impact of coal combustion, residential biomass burning, and wildfires indicating the high pollution level of the Lake Baikal ecological system .     

工业烟尘废气中PM2.5的除尘技术概述

本文通过对不同的常规除尘设备的工作原理以及除尘性能进行研究,重点分析了电袋式混合除尘器、静电旋风式混合除尘器以及湿式电除尘器三种混合除尘器的技术特点,指出混合除尘器和凝并器能有效提高除尘器去除PM2.5的效率,对工业发展和保护大气环境具有重要意义.     

Sensitivity of future ozone concentrations in the northeast USA to regional climate change

An air quality modeling system was used to simulate the effects on ozone concentration in the northeast USA from climate changes projected through the end of the twenty-first century by the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s (NCAR’s) parallel climate model, a fully coupled general circulation model, under a higher and a lower scenario of future global changes in concentrations of radiatively active constituents. The air quality calculations were done with both a global chemistry-transport model and a regional air quality model focused on the northeast USA. The air quality simulations assumed no changes in regional anthropogenic emissions of the chemical species primarily involved in the chemical reactions of ozone creation and destruction, but only accounted for changes in the climate. Together, these idealized global and regional model simulations provide insights into the contribution of possible future climate changes on ozone. Over the coming century, summer climate is projected to be warmer and less cloudy for the northeast USA. These changes are considerably larger under the higher scenario as compared with the lower. Higher temperatures also increase biogenic emissions. Both mean daily and 8-h maximum ozone increase from the combination of three factors that tend to favor higher concentrations: (1) higher temperatures change the rates of reactions and photolysis rates important to the ozone chemistry; (2) lower cloudiness (higher solar radiation) increases the photolysis reaction rates; and (3) higher biogenic emissions increase the concentration of reactive species. Regional model simulations with two cumulus parameterizations produce ozone concentration changes that differ by approximately 10%, indicating that there is considerable uncertainty in the magnitude of changes due to uncertainties in how physical processes should be parameterized in the models. However, the overall effect of the climate changes simulated by these models – in the absence of reductions in regional anthropogenic emissions – would be to increase ozone concentrations.     

Long-term reductions in costs of controlling regional air pollution in Europe due to climate policy

This paper examines to what extent climate change policies will alter the effectiveness of agreed-upon or future policies to reduce regional air pollution in Europe and vice versa. And when is it cost-effective to combat regional air pollution with clean technology instead of add-on technology?For this exercise, several extensions were made to the energy model TIMER, to introduce add-on abatement technologies, specified in terms of costs and reduction potentials, in order to be able to calculate cost-effective emission reduction strategies for different scenarios and regions.The results show that add-on technologies to reduce regional air pollution remain necessary throughout the century. The costs to reach the NO_x emission reduction targets in Europe are about three times as high as for SO₂. Mitigation costs averaged over the century by add-on technologies can be reduced by climate measures by 50–70% for SO₂ and around 50% for NO_x. The costs of SO₂ and NO_x mitigation by add-on technology in a world without climate policy are comparable or in some periods even higher than the costs of an integrated mitigation of SO₂, NO_x and CO₂ emissions if a reduction of specific costs by learning is, in contrast with energy technologies, not assumed for abatement technologies. So, the costs of SO₂ and NO_x add-on measures avoided by climate policies can outweigh the costs of these climate measures. The total annual costs are in the order of 1 or 2% of the present GDP, depending on the scenario.     

The influence of wind direction,circulation type and air pollution emissions on summer visibility trends in southern England

Summer visibility data from a rural site in southern England are analyzed in different wind directions and Lamb circulation types over a 14-year period and related to possible air pollution source areas. Increases in visibility are evident in most wind directions and circulation types after the 1973 oil crisis, indicating that climatic change is not the major cause of visibility improvement. It is suggested that aerosol SO₄²⁻ formation from precursor emissions within the U.K. may be important and that decreased U.K. SO₂ emissions are more important for visibility improvement than changes in long distance transport of air pollution from continental Europe.     

现行脱硫技术存在排放温室气体的隐患

工业革命以来,由于人类活动持续大量排放温室气体,使得全球出现了持续性的气候变暖趋势,而为了治理局部的和区域的SO2污染问题,大规模的脱硫活动在我国急速增加,这势必大幅增加CO2的排放,加剧气候变暖的进程,如果我国大型火电厂的脱硫率达到80%,按照2005年全国SO2排放量已经达到0.2549Gt计算,采用现行脱硫方法将每年向大气中排放0.088Gt的CO2。将占我国CO2年排放量的10%,对人类赖以生存的地球形成严重威胁。因而,需要研究脱硫的无碳工艺,以及碳捕集、碳储存、碳利用技术,树立综合的环境意识,在控制大气污染、减排温室气体与保护臭氧层方面寻找结合点。     

论污染物排放的季节性总量控制

今年国务院颁布的《大气污染防治国十条》再次揭示了我国环境污染的严峻现状。虽然规制措施不断严苛,但也存在诸多未曾虑及的方面,季节性总量控制就是其一。我国的季节性污染事件频发,也正表明我国亟需展开对污染物排放的季节性控制。我国大部分地区属于季风气候,夏、冬两季水与大气环境条件区分明显,这也给实施季节性污染物控制提供了条件。而在浓度控制基础上对水和大气污染物质进行季节性总量控制就显示出了合理性。