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The Geographic Distribution and Economic Value of Climate Change-Related Ozone Health Impacts in the United States in 2030
Citation:
Fann, N., C. Nolte, P. Dolwick, T. Spero, A. CurryBrown, S. Phillips, AND S. Anenberg. The Geographic Distribution and Economic Value of Climate Change-Related Ozone Health Impacts in the United States in 2030. JOURNAL OF AIR AND WASTE MANAGEMENT. Air & Waste Management Association, Pittsburgh, PA, 65(5):570-580, (2015).
Impact/Purpose:
The National Exposure Research Laboratory’s Atmospheric Modeling Division (AMAD) conducts research in support of EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment. AMAD’s research program is engaged in developing and evaluating predictive atmospheric models on all spatial and temporal scales for forecasting the Nation’s air quality and for assessing changes in air quality and air pollutant exposures, as affected by changes in ecosystem management and regulatory decisions. AMAD is responsible for providing a sound scientific and technical basis for regulatory policies based on air quality models to improve ambient air quality. The models developed by AMAD are being used by EPA, NOAA, and the air pollution community in understanding and forecasting not only the magnitude of the air pollution problem, but also in developing emission control policies and regulations for air quality improvements.
Description:
In this U.S.-focused analysis we use outputs from two global climate models (GCMs) driven by different greenhouse gas forcing scenarios as inputs to regional climate and chemical transport models to investigate potential changes in near-term U.S. air quality due to climate change. We conduct multi-year simulations to account for inter-annual variability and characterize the near-term influence of a changing climate on ozone-related health impacts near the year 2030, which is a policy-relevant timeframe that is subject to fewer uncertainties than other approaches employed in the literature. We adopt a 2030 emissions inventory that accounts for fully implementing anthropogenic emissions controls required by federal, state, and/or local policies, which is projected to strongly influence future ozone levels. We quantify a comprehensive suite of ozone-related mortality and morbidity impacts including emergency department visits, hospital admissions, acute respiratory symptoms and lost school days and estimate the economic value of these impacts. Both GCMs project temperature increases of 1 to 4°C and 1-5 ppb increases in ozone at 2030, though each climate scenario produces ozone levels that vary significantly over space and time. We estimate tens to thousands of additional ozone-related premature deaths and illnesses per year for these two scenarios and calculate an economic burden of these health outcomes of hundreds of millions to tens of billions of U.S. dollars (2010$).
URLs/Downloads:
FINAL FINAL HEALTH IMPACTS MANUSCRIPT_.PDF (PDF, NA pp, 277.321 KB, about PDF)Journal of the air & Waste Management Association
