Intercontinental impacts of ozone pollution on human mortality.

Journal Article (Journal Article)

Ozone exposure is associated with negative health impacts, including premature mortality. Observations and modeling studies demonstrate that emissions from one continent influence ozone air quality over other continents. We estimate the premature mortalities avoided from surface ozone decreases obtained via combined 20% reductions of anthropogenic nitrogen oxide, nonmethane volatile organic compound, and carbon monoxide emissions in North America (NA), EastAsia (EA), South Asia (SA), and Europe (EU). We use estimates of ozone responses to these emission changes from several atmospheric chemical transportmodels combined with a health impactfunction. Foreign emission reductions contribute approximately 30%, 30%, 20%, and >50% of the mortalities avoided by reducing precursor emissions in all regions together in NA, EA, SA and EU, respectively. Reducing emissions in NA and EU avoids more mortalities outside the source region than within, owing in part to larger populations in foreign regions. Lowering the global methane abundance by 20% reduces mortality mostin SA,followed by EU, EA, and NA. For some source-receptor pairs, there is greater uncertainty in our estimated avoided mortalities associated with the modeled ozone responses to emission changes than with the health impact function parameters.

Full Text

Duke Authors

Cited Authors

  • Anenberg, SC; West, IJ; Fiore, AM; Jaffe, DA; Prather, MJ; Bergmann, D; Cuvelier, K; Dentener, FJ; Duncan, BN; Gauss, M; Hess, P; Jonson, JE; Lupu, A; Mackenzie, IA; Marmer, E; Park, RJ; Sanderson, MG; Schultz, M; Shindell, DT; Szopa, S; Vivanco, MG; Wild, O; Zeng, G

Published Date

  • September 2009

Published In

Volume / Issue

  • 43 / 17

Start / End Page

  • 6482 - 6487

PubMed ID

  • 19764205

Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)

  • 1520-5851

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 0013-936X

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1021/es900518z

Language

  • eng