Gomez, J, Allen, RJ, Turnock, ST orcid.org/0000-0002-0036-4627 et al. (6 more authors) (2023) The projected future degradation in air quality is caused by more abundant natural aerosols in a warmer world. Communications Earth and Environment, 4. 22. ISSN 2662-4435
Abstract
Previous studies suggest that greenhouse gas-induced warming can lead to increased fine particulate matter concentrations and degraded air quality. However, significant uncertainties remain regarding the sign and magnitude of the response to warming and the underlying mechanisms. Here, we show that thirteen models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 all project an increase in global average concentrations of fine particulate matter in response to rising carbon dioxide concentrations, but the range of increase across models is wide. The two main contributors to this increase are increased abundance of dust and secondary organic aerosols via intensified West African monsoon and enhanced emissions of biogenic volatile organic compounds, respectively. Much of the inter-model spread is related to different treatment of biogenic volatile organic compounds. Our results highlight the importance of natural aerosols in degrading air quality under current warming, while also emphasizing that improved understanding of biogenic volatile organic compounds emissions due to climate change is essential for numerically assessing future air quality.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2023. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 22 Feb 2023 10:55 |
Last Modified: | 22 Feb 2023 10:55 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Nature Research |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/s43247-023-00688-7 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:196659 |