SUBSCRIBE TO TMCnet
TMCnet - World's Largest Communications and Technology Community

CHANNEL BY TOPICS


QUICK LINKS




Dying for a Breath of Fresh Air
Green Technology Featured Articles
September 24, 2013

Dying for a Breath of Fresh Air

By Cheryl Kaften
TMCnet Contributor

Close to 500,000 people are dying annually because of the dirty air they breathe, according to research done at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. That’s about twice the number who succumb to influenza worldwide according to the Centers for Disease Control—and about half the number who meet their maker in a car accident, based on figures from the World Health Organization.


Greenhouse gases—such as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane—are not just responsible for global warming, based on the study, published recently in Environmental Research Letters. The surge in harmful inhalants due to human activity since the Industrial Revolution (News - Alert) is now at lethal levels for at-risk members of the population.

Why hasn’t the scientific community documented this threat before? Previous work on this subject has examined mortality as a near-term and local effect of air pollution—failing to analyze how air pollutants can drift across national borders, long-term changes in human populations or the indirect effects of climate change on air quality, explained researcher Jason West, Ph.D., an atmospheric scientist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who worked on the paper along with doctoral students Raquel A. Silva and Yuqiang Zhang.

West, Silva, Zhang and a team of international scientists now estimate that about 470,000 people die each year because of human-caused increases in ozone. They also estimate that about 2.1 million deaths result each year from human-caused increases in fine particulate matter - tiny particles suspended in the air that can penetrate deep into the lungs, causing cancer and other respiratory diseases. 

"Our estimates [rank] outdoor air pollution among the most important environmental risk factors for health," West said. "Many of these deaths are estimated to occur in East Asia and South Asia, where a large population is exposed to severe air pollution." 

However, the study finds that the number of these deaths that can be attributed to changes in the climate since the industrial era began is relatively small. It is near-term deaths that are up significantly.

Climate change affects air pollution in many ways, possibly leading to local increases or decreases in air pollution. For instance, temperature and humidity can change reaction rates, which determine the formation and lifetime of a pollutant, and rainfall can determine how long pollutants accumulate. Higher temperatures also can increase emissions of organic compounds from trees, which then can react in the atmosphere to form ozone and particulate matter.   

"Very few studies have attempted to estimate the effects of past climate change on air quality and health," West said. "We found that the effects of past climate change are likely to be a very small component of the overall effect of air pollution." 

The researchers used an array of global atmospheric chemistry-climate models to simulate concentrations of ozone and fine particulate matter in the years 1850 and 2000. A total of 14 models simulated levels of ozone, and six models simulated levels of fine particulate matter. Previous epidemiological studies were used to assess how specific concentrations of air pollution from the climate models related to current global mortality rates. 

"We also have found significant uncertainty based on the results we get when using different atmospheric models," West admitted. "This would caution against using a single model in the future, as some studies have done."




Edited by Alisen Downey


Green Technology Related Articles






Technology Marketing Corporation

2 Trap Falls Road Suite 106, Shelton, CT 06484 USA
Ph: +1-203-852-6800, 800-243-6002

General comments: [email protected].
Comments about this site: [email protected].

STAY CURRENT YOUR WAY

© 2024 Technology Marketing Corporation. All rights reserved | Privacy Policy