Journal Article

Clean air policies are key for successfully mitigating Arctic warming

Fu, Joshua S, von Salzen, Knut, Eckhardt, Sabine, Beagley, Stephen, Faluvegi, Greg, Evangeliou, Nikolaos, Ekman, Annica M. L, Klimont, Zbigniew, Gauss, Michael, Anenberg, Susan C, Mahmood, Rashed, Van Dingenen, Rita, Whaley, Cynthia, Christensen, Jesper H, Chien, Rong-You, Flanner, Mark G, Arnold, Stephen R

2022

Overview

A tighter integration of modeling frameworks for climate and air quality is urgently needed to assess the impacts of clean air policies on future Arctic and global climate. We combined a new model emulator and comprehensive emissions scenarios for air pollutants and greenhouse gases to assess climate and human health co-benefits of emissions reductions. Fossil fuel use is projected to rapidly decline in an increasingly sustainable world, resulting in far-reaching air quality benefits. Despite human health benefits, reductions in sulfur emissions in a more sustainable world could enhance Arctic warming by 0.8 °C in 2050 relative to the 1995–2014, thereby offsetting climate benefits of greenhouse gas reductions. Targeted and technically feasible emissions reduction opportunities exist for achieving simultaneous climate and human health co-benefits. It would be particularly beneficial to unlock a newly identified mitigation potential for carbon particulate matter, yielding Arctic climate benefits equivalent to those from carbon dioxide reductions by 2050.

• Publisher: Nature Research,Nature Publishing Group,Springer Nature,Nature Portfolio
• Subject: Air pollution / Air quality / Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics / Carbon / Carbon dioxide / Climate models / Emissions / Emissions control / Environment Pollution / Environmental assessment / Environmental Sciences / Fossil fuels / Global Changes / Global climate / Greenhouse effect / Greenhouse gases / Particulate emissions / Particulate matter / Physics / Policies / Pollutants / Sciences of the Universe / Sulfur