Grantee Research Project Results
2008 Progress Report: Effects of Climate Change on Human Health: Current and Future Impacts
EPA Grant Number: R832751Title: Effects of Climate Change on Human Health: Current and Future Impacts
Investigators: Hanna, Adel , Yeatts, Karin B. , Xiu, Aijun , Henderson, Fred , Robinson, Peter , Smith, Richard , Arunachalam, Sarav , Zhu, Zhengyuan
Current Investigators: Hanna, Adel , Yeatts, Karin B. , Xiu, Aijun , Henderson, Fred , Robinson, Peter , Smith, Richard , Zhu, Zhengyuan
Institution: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
EPA Project Officer: Chung, Serena
Project Period: January 1, 2006 through December 31, 2008 (Extended to December 31, 2010)
Project Period Covered by this Report: January 1, 2008 through December 31,2008
Project Amount: $599,103
RFA: The Impact of Climate Change & Variability on Human Health (2005) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Climate Change
Objective:
The overall goal of this project is to define more precisely the interrelationships among (a) changes in climate and meteorological conditions, (b) air pollution, and (c) heat- and cold-related morbidity severe enough to warrant clinical contact. A secondary goal is to evaluate heat-related morbidity in a vulnerable population: children and adults under economic disadvantage.Progress Summary:
We have examined the above interrelationships in five cities across North Carolina: Asheville, Charlotte, Greensboro, Raleigh, and Wilmington. Ten years of data (1996-2005) were used, including (a) weather observations (daily maximum temperature, daily average wind speed, daily minimum temperature, surface pressure, dew point); (b) air quality measurements (O3, PM10, and, if available, NO2 and CO); and (c) hospital admissions records of asthma and myocardial infarction (MI). Daily weather and climate conditions in the five cities were classified in terms of eight air mass types. We used a generalized linear model to study the relationship between current, 1-day-lagged, 2-day-lagged, 3-day-lagged, 4-day-lagged, and 5-day-lagged O3, NO2, PM10, and CO concentrations, air mass types, and asthma and MI hospital admissions in adults, after adjusting for meteorological variables, nonlinear seasonal effects, day of week effects, and long-term trend. After conducting the analysis for the selected five cities, we concluded from the results that three weather types (circulation patterns or synoptic air mass patterns), in conjunction with ambient air pollution levels, are associated with increased asthma and MI hospital admissions. These three are the dry moderate, dry tropical, and moist tropical circulation patterns. Additional health data (doctor’s office, emergency room, and hospital visits for asthma in children enrolled in Medicaid) agreed with the above results from hospitalization data in terms of the validity of the air-mass/air-quality approach to characterizing the peaks in health data.We focused on our modeling analyses that were designed to assess the potential impacts of weather types (circulation patterns) and air quality on morbidity in future years. We used the Community Climate System Model (CCSM) to simulate current climate for the year 1999. We examined the CCSM model results in order to compare them with the daily weather analyses that were used for the weather classifications for the five cities in North Carolina. As expected, ii Effects of Climate Change on Human Health: Current and Future Impacts (R832751010) — Year 3 Progress Report because of the coarse resolution of the CCSM results, the initial agreement with air mass classifications derived from observations was not strong. We then used the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to downscale the CCSM model outputs to the appropriate resolution needed to characterize the air masses (weather patterns). We compared air mass patterns revealed from the WRF with those based on meteorological observations for the five cities in North Carolina. We found good agreement between the two data sources. This supports the use of the model when characterizing air masses based on future climate scenarios.
We are extending our modeling investigation to examine our air mass approach on a national basis using available non-accidental mortality data for 90 cities in the United States. Preliminary results show that, similar to the results found using morbidity cases in North Carolina, specific air masses have significant statistical relationships with ozone and PM concentration levels and mortality rates.
Future Activities:
During the project’s fourth year, we will apply the results of the statistical modeling, obtained from the 10-year (1996-2005) analyses for North Carolina, to the year 2030. We will continue the modeling simulations that started in the third year using the WRF model with the projected climate for 2030 to model the air quality, based on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) emissions scenarios for that year. We will continue the CCSM model simulations for the future-year IPCC climate scenarios. The CMAQ model will be used to simulate the air quality for the year 2030. We will examine the properties of simulated air masses (emission sources, chemical properties), in North Carolina, and compare them with properties under the current climate conditions. We will quantify and assess the uncertainty in climate- and health-related projections. We will also quantify potential economic losses due to projected emergency room visits, hospitalizations, and medication use.Journal Articles:
No journal articles submitted with this report: View all 11 publications for this projectSupplemental Keywords:
global climate, air quality, human health, epidemiology, modeling, climate models, Southeastern U.S., RFA, Health, Scientific Discipline, Air, Health Risk Assessment, climate change, Air Pollution Effects, Risk Assessments, Biochemistry, Environmental Monitoring, Ecological Risk Assessment, Atmosphere, air quality modeling, morbidity, air pollution, human exposure, climate models, human dimension, human health risk, land use, statistical methodsRelevant Websites:
http://www.ie.unc.edu/cempd/projects2/climate/index.cfm (note that the site is password protected and, for now, can be accessed only by the team of investigators and the EPA Project Officer).
Progress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.