TITLE:
Impacts on the Urban Air Quality and Health of Global Climate Scenarios Using Different Dynamical Downscaling Approaches
AUTHORS:
Roberto San José, Juan L. Pérez, Libia Pérez, Rosa M. González, Julia Pecci, Antonio Garzón, Marino Palacios
KEYWORDS:
Climate, Dowscaling, WRF/Chem, Health
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Geoscience and Environment Protection,
Vol.4 No.4,
April
30,
2016
ABSTRACT: The objective of this publication is to
present a modeling system that allows investigating the possible climate
change-driven effects of air pollutants on human health. The system connects
global climate change to ambient air pollution concentrations that then are
linked to epidemiological endpoints. The tool has been applied to quantify the
future (2030, 2050 and 2100) impact on air pollution and health of two of the
IPCC global climate scenarios over the cities: Madrid, Milan and London (zone
Kensington-Chelsea) with different very high spatial resolutions (100, 200 and
10 meters) respect to the present (2011). Results indicate how ambient air
pollutant concentrations respond to different climatic conditions, and how
human health could be affected by changes in air pollution induced by global
warning. The system includes global climate simulations, nested with
regional/urban meteorological models (prognostic and diagnostic) to drive
chemical transport models (offline and online modes) and a computational fluid
dynamic model keeping anthropogenic emissions and the urban landscape at
reference level (2011) to isolate the effects of the global climate over the
city. The results of these simulations suggest that climate will have an
important effect on urban air pollution and health over the next several
decades, especially under the IPCC RCP 8.5 scenario.