TY - JOUR
T1 - Projecting the impacts of atmospheric conditions under climate change on air quality over the Pearl River Delta region
AU - Tong, Cheuk Hei Marcus
AU - Yim, Steve Hung Lam
AU - Rothenberg, Daniel
AU - Wang, Chien
AU - Lin, Chuan Yao
AU - Chen, Yongqin David
AU - Lau, Ngar Cheung
N1 - Funding Information:
This work is jointly funded by the Improvement on Competitiveness in Hiring New Faculties Fund (2013/14) of The Chinese University of Hong Kong ; The Vice-Chancellor's Discretionary Fund of The Chinese University of Hong Kong (grant no. 4930744 ) and the Early Career Scheme of Research Grants Council of Hong Kong (grant no. ECS-24301415 ). We would like to thank the Hong Kong Environmental Protection Department and the Hong Kong Observatory for providing air quality and meteorological data, respectively and the Information Technology Services Centre (ITSC) at CUHK for technical support. We also thank the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2018/11
Y1 - 2018/11
N2 - Anthropogenic climate change has been increasingly confirmed by weather observation and scientific literature in recent decades. Atmospheric stability, which has strong effects on vertical mixing of air pollutants and thus air quality, may be affected under climate change. This study aims to statistically assess the impacts of climate change alone on the future air quality in the Pearl River Delta region in the near future (2030–2039) and the far future (2090–2099) under two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) scenarios, i.e., RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5, based on the future surface and upper level meteorological data projected by one regional climate model (RCM): WRF, and by four general circulation models (GCMs): CanESM2, MIROC, MRI-CGCM3 and MPI-ESM-LR. The arithmetic means of projections reveal an increase in the levels of air pollutants [ozone (O3), respirable suspended particulates (RSP) and sulphur dioxide (SO2)] in various seasons, even though a decrease is projected to occur in June-July-August. These changes in projected mean concentration are more significant in the far future, and under the RCP8.5 scenario. Among difference meteorological variables, surface temperature is most associated with the projected change in the three pollutants, with a range from 56.9% to 65.2% in all seasons and for all pollutants, relative to all contributions in RCP8.5 for example. Other notable associations include positive effects of vertical temperature gradient and the temperature–dew point difference on pollutant concentration. We found an increase in frequency of high pollution levels in December–January–February and March–April–May, as the occurrence proportion of pollutant concentration greater than the recent 95th percentile is 9.5%–9.6% and 6.4%–9.2%, respectively. We conclude that climate change alone is projected to have significant effect on air quality in the Pearl River Delta region in future, implying the necessity of more stringent air pollutant emission control policies to mitigate air pollution in the future.
AB - Anthropogenic climate change has been increasingly confirmed by weather observation and scientific literature in recent decades. Atmospheric stability, which has strong effects on vertical mixing of air pollutants and thus air quality, may be affected under climate change. This study aims to statistically assess the impacts of climate change alone on the future air quality in the Pearl River Delta region in the near future (2030–2039) and the far future (2090–2099) under two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) scenarios, i.e., RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5, based on the future surface and upper level meteorological data projected by one regional climate model (RCM): WRF, and by four general circulation models (GCMs): CanESM2, MIROC, MRI-CGCM3 and MPI-ESM-LR. The arithmetic means of projections reveal an increase in the levels of air pollutants [ozone (O3), respirable suspended particulates (RSP) and sulphur dioxide (SO2)] in various seasons, even though a decrease is projected to occur in June-July-August. These changes in projected mean concentration are more significant in the far future, and under the RCP8.5 scenario. Among difference meteorological variables, surface temperature is most associated with the projected change in the three pollutants, with a range from 56.9% to 65.2% in all seasons and for all pollutants, relative to all contributions in RCP8.5 for example. Other notable associations include positive effects of vertical temperature gradient and the temperature–dew point difference on pollutant concentration. We found an increase in frequency of high pollution levels in December–January–February and March–April–May, as the occurrence proportion of pollutant concentration greater than the recent 95th percentile is 9.5%–9.6% and 6.4%–9.2%, respectively. We conclude that climate change alone is projected to have significant effect on air quality in the Pearl River Delta region in future, implying the necessity of more stringent air pollutant emission control policies to mitigate air pollution in the future.
KW - Air quality
KW - Climate change
KW - General circulation model
KW - Generalized linear models
KW - Trans-boundary air pollution
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85053108675&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85053108675&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2018.08.053
DO - 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2018.08.053
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85053108675
SN - 1352-2310
VL - 193
SP - 79
EP - 87
JO - Atmospheric Environment
JF - Atmospheric Environment
ER -