Silver, B. orcid.org/0000-0003-0395-0637, Arnold, S.R. orcid.org/0000-0002-4881-5685, Reddington, C.L. et al. (2 more authors) (2024) Large transboundary health impact of Arctic wildfire smoke. Communications Earth & Environment, 5. 199. ISSN 2662-4435
Abstract
Rapid warming at high latitudes, particularly in Siberia, has led to large wildfires in recent years that cause widespread smoke plumes. These fires lead to substantial deterioration in summer air quality in the region, with a factor 4 increase in summer fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations in parts of Siberia during 1998–2020. Exposure to PM2.5 is associated with increased risk of mortality due to cardiovascular and respiratory disease, and the atmospheric lifetime of PM2.5 means that it can be efficiently transported between regions and nations. We used the Community Earth System Model to quantify the fraction of PM2.5 attributed to high latitude wildfires that occur in the Arctic Council member states and estimated the attributable health impact locally and in neighbouring countries. During 2001–2020 we attribute ~21,000 excess deaths to Arctic Council wildfires on average each year, of which ~8000 occur in countries outside the Arctic Council. Our analysis shows that the health impact of Arctic wildfires decreased during 2001–2020, despite the increase of wildfire-sourced PM2.5, which we suggest is due to a northwards shift in the average latitude of Siberian wildfires, reducing their impact on more densely populated regions.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2024. 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) > Inst for Climate & Atmos Science (ICAS) (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) NE/T013672/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 26 Apr 2024 15:56 |
Last Modified: | 26 Apr 2024 15:56 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Nature Research |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/s43247-024-01361-3 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:211885 |