Grantee Research Project Results
2011 Progress Report: Air Pollution, Health and Economic Impacts of Global Change Policy andFuture Technologies: An Integrated Model Analysis
EPA Grant Number: R834279Title: Air Pollution, Health and Economic Impacts of Global Change Policy andFuture Technologies: An Integrated Model Analysis
Investigators: Selin, Noelle Eckley , Graham, John , Prinn, Ronald G. , Reilly, John , Webster, Mort D. , Paltsev, Sergey , Yang, Huiyan , Amar, Praveen
Current Investigators: Selin, Noelle Eckley , Graham, John , Webster, Mort D. , Prinn, Ronald G. , Wang, Chien , Yang, Huiyan , Reilly, John , Amar, Praveen , Paltsev, Sergey
Institution: Massachusetts Institute of Technology , NESCAUM
Current Institution: Harvard University , Massachusetts Institute of Technology , NESCAUM
EPA Project Officer: Chung, Serena
Project Period: September 1, 2009 through August 31, 2012 (Extended to February 28, 2014)
Project Period Covered by this Report: September 1, 2010 through August 31,2011
Project Amount: $600,000
RFA: Adaptation for Future Air Quality Analysis and Decision Support Tools in Light of Global Change Impacts and Mitigation (2008) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Air Quality and Air Toxics , Climate Change , Air
Objective:
The central research questions for this study are:
- How will technologies and policy choices in response to global change, specifically transportation technologies, impact air quality, human health and the economy on global to local scales by 2050?
- What are the quantified costs and benefits of these different adaptation choices? Our focus will be to assess the local air pollution impacts of (a) emerging vehicle technologies such as plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and biofuels and (b) air pollution and climate policies, separately and in combination. We will assess their impacts on human health and the economic benefits and costs of these policies and technologies.
Progress Summary:
We have developed and completed initial tests on a coupled model infrastructure linking atmospheric and economic models. This work has involved including health impacts in a U.S. regional economic model, and linking economic model emissions projections to a regional chemical transport model.
Work status, work progress, preliminary data, results, and evaluations made during the reporting period
During this period, we have completed and submitted for publication the preliminary work described in our previous report, conducting uncertainty analyses and baseline simulations to test our methodology for simulating air pollution, health and economic impacts. To do this, we conducted final simulations using CAMx and other atmospheric models, applied the EPPA economic model with health effects, compared atmospheric data with observations, and conducted QA/QC tests. We also prepared data and analyses for presentation and publication.
We are near completion of the first expected result of our project: Developing modeling capability to facilitate better understanding of the interplay between human activities, air pollution and regulatory requirements, climate policy, and human health and large-scale economic factors at local to global scales in approximately 2050. These tools will account for uncertainty and variability in projections of a future world that includes global change.
As part of this development, we have conducted two related activities at MIT, which build on our now-complete preliminary work. First, we have completed development of the capability to assess ozone-related health and economic impacts in the U.S. economic model USREP. We have benchmarked these results against previously published results using our global EPPA model (Selin, et al., 2009) and confirmed their correspondence. Results of a model test are shown in Figure 1. Development of capability to include PM2.5 impacts in USREP is ongoing.
Figure 1. Preliminary results for USREP-Health Effects
model for scenario with decreasing ozone concentrations
to 2050 (following Selin et.al., 2009). Shown in the figure
is decreasing pollution health demand as percentage of per
capita GDP under different economic assumptions. Results
are relatively insensitive to economic model differences.
Second, we have developed a methodology for using projections of emissions-related activities in USREP to drive emissions in the regional atmospheric model CAMx. This methodology uses changes in activity in economic sectors to scale emissions from a base-case CAMx run, via the SMOKE emissions preprocessing system. We link economic sectors in USREP with SCC codes, and economic region with state FIPS codes to create a control input file for SMOKE. We then input emissions inventories into the CAMx model to compare policy scenarios. A visual description of this methodology is provided in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Methodology for linking USREP and CAMx.
Over the past year, NESCAUM has reviewed the EPPA framework and regional economic model used to produce emission projection scenarios for the project. The review was focused on how emissions scenarios are characterized in the EPPA framework and how the emission outputs from EPPA are mapped to the air quality modeling phase of the project. As part of the review process, NESCAUM and MIT held regular meetings to discuss clarifying questions about the modeling approach. The key issues discussed were:
- The industrial structure of the EPPA model.
- The crosswalk between the industrial coding system in EPPA and the Source Classification Categories used in the SMOKE processing.
- The level of technological detail represented in the EPPA model.
- Federal and regional policies included in the air quality modeling baseline.
Results (outputs/outcomes) to date, emphasizing findings and their significance to the field, their relationship to the general goals of the award, their relevance to the Agency's mission, and their potential practical applications
We have finalized, prepared and submitted for publication results from our year 1 analyses of assessing relevant uncertainties and assessing baseline climate co-benefits of a global scenario. Preliminary results in these areas were described in our report of year 1; our conclusions are summarized below.
In addition to the results described in detail here, we also have developed our integrated modeling capability to facilitate better understanding of the interplay between human activities, air pollution and regulatory requirements, and climate policy. This set of tools represents a generalizable framework that can be used in the future to address this intersection.
Assessment of Relevant Uncertainties
We conducted uncertainty analyses both globally and for U.S. regional modeling, assessing the relative contributions of uncertainty in air pollution models versus epidemiological and economic uncertainty in quantifying health impacts of air pollution.
In a first study (Selin, et al., 2011a) we compared three different concentration estimates for population-weighted PM2.5 air pollution globally--two from global-scale atmospheric chemistry models and one from a satellite product. We then compared the variation in these estimates to the variation contributed by uncertainty in epidemiology and economics (a schematic diagram of this analysis is shown in Figure 3). A major finding of this work was that the variation in estimated PM2.5 air pollution from atmospheric models globally was comparable to the relative uncertainties in epidemiology and economic domains. Most of the variation, however, was outside the United States, where PM2.5 model estimates are less constrained by data.
In a second study (Thompson and Selin, 2011), we evaluated the uncertainty associated with regional air quality modeling grid resolution when calculating the health benefits of proposed air quality regulations. Using the CAMx model, we ran two modeling episodes (a 2006 base-case and a 2018 attainment demonstration, both for Houston, Texas) at 36, 12, 4 and 2 km resolution. We found that estimated avoided mortalities were not significantly different using coarse resolution (Table 1). We concluded that population weighted ozone concentrations obtained using regional photochemical models at 36 km resolution are meaningful relative to values obtained using fine (12 km or finer) resolution modeling. This suggests the possibility for uncertainty analyses in future project work on 36 km resolution air quality modeling results, which are on average 10 times more computationally efficient than finer-scale models.
Figure 3. Schematic of variability/uncertainty analysis of global PM2.5 exposure (Selin et al., 2011a).
Mean wiht 95% Confidence Interval | Change in Mortality (# of deaths in area) | Respiratory Hospital Admissions Adults >65 yrs | Respiratory Symptom Day | Minor Restricted Activity Day | Asthma Attack | Bronchodilator usage |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Values Calculated Using Population Weighted Concentrations as Measured by Air Quality Monitors in 2006 | ||||||
06 Molnitor Data | 44 (15, 58) | 207 (-83,467) | 56442 (94385,1043208) | 190247 (72859,314618) | 71037 (5464,137438) | 1208796 (-430530,2649416) |
Change (Decrease) in Metrics between the 2006 Modeled Basecase and the 2018 Modeled Control Case | ||||||
Model 2k | 5 (2,7) | 25 (-10,60) | 65466 (11308,124980) | 22814 (8729, 37692) | 8511 (655,16466) | 144818 (-51579,317409) |
Model 4k | 5 (2,7) | 24 (-10,59) | 64601 (11158,123330) | 22513 (8613,37195) | 8398 (646,16248,) | 142906 (-50898,313218) |
Model 12k | 5 (2,7) | 23 (-9,56) | 61302 (10589,117031) | 21363 (8174,35295) | 7969 (613,15418) | 135607 (-48299,297222) |
Model 36k | 7 (2,9) | 32 (-13,76) | 83552 (14432,159508) | 29117 (11140,48106) | 10862 (836,21015) | 184827 (-65829,405101) |
Evaluation of Base-Case Global Scenario
We have finalized and submitted for publication our work assessing the co-benefits from climate policy for global aerosol health impacts (Selin, et al., 2011b), based on our base-case global scenario. In this work, we quantified the global changes in atmospheric aerosol (PM2.5) and related health and economic impacts under a reference case and four greenhouse gas stabilization scenarios to 2050. Policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions could reduce emissions of aerosol precursors, due to reduced energy use or cleaner energy generation. We used aerosol precursor emissions and greenhouse gas forcings from the MIT Integrated Global Systems Model (IGSM) framework to drive the MIT/NCAR version of the Community Atmospheric Model version 3 (CAM3). We calculated the influence of future aerosol precursor emissions changes on population-weighted average PM2.5 in 16 global regions. We then used an economic and health model to quantify the implications of these changes for human disease and the global economy. We estimate that health-related co-benefits of climate policy for PM2.5 in 2050 range from 0.03-0.09% of total economic welfare, and could result in 48,000-130,000 avoided annual mortalities. We find that global aerosol-related health and economic benefits associated with climate policies are much smaller than estimated global costs of climate policy, but not negligible in the context of policy analysis. For less stringent climate policies, developing regions benefit most, and co-benefits have decreasing returns as climate policy becomes more stringent.
Future Activities:
In year 3, we will complete testing of the coupled model infrastructure and conduct policy-focused analyses to assess the impacts on air quality, health and the economy of air pollution and climate policies, separately and in combination. Outreach and dissemination of the results of this research will be conducted, with a focus on the Northeast states.
Planned activity for the subsequent reporting period, including a description of equipment, techniques, and materials to be used or evaluated
Activities for the third and final reporting period at MIT will include:
- Finalizing and testing (QA/QC) coupled model infrastructure linking atmospheric and economic models, including preparing a publication.
- Applying our coupled framework to assess relevant air pollution and climate policies, separately and in combination (which will be developed in combination with NESCAUM as described below).
- Publication and presentation of results.
NESCAUM currently is developing a set of preliminary recommendations on the types of scenarios that will provide state regulators in the Northeast and nationally with the most insightful findings for future policymaking. The recommendations will help to inform a roundtable discussion with state environmental regulators that will be co-hosted by NESCAUM and MIT.
The purpose of the roundtable, which will be held in Boston, Massachusetts in late January, is to help the MIT team identify final modeling scenarios that will generate useful insights with respect to current air quality and climate goals in the Northeast states. Participants in the roundtable discussion will include: the MIT team; state air and climate planning staff from Vermont, Maryland, New York, Massachusetts, and New Jersey; and NESCAUM staff.
Journal Articles:
No journal articles submitted with this report: View all 21 publications for this projectSupplemental Keywords:
ozone, particulates, health effects, Northeast, benefit-cost, integrated assessment, climate change;, RFA, Air, climate change, Air Pollution Effects, AtmosphereRelevant Websites:
MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change Exit
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.