Future air pollution related health burdens associated with RCP emission changes in the UK

Sara Fenech; Ruth M Doherty; Fiona M O'Connor; Clare Heaviside; Helen L Macintyre; Sotiris Vardoulakis; Paul Agnew; Lucy S Neal

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.145635

Future air pollution related health burdens associated with RCP emission changes in the UK

Sci Total Environ. 2021 Jun 15:773:145635. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.145635. Epub 2021 Feb 5.

Authors

Sara Fenech¹, Ruth M Doherty², Fiona M O'Connor³, Clare Heaviside⁴, Helen L Macintyre⁵, Sotiris Vardoulakis⁶, Paul Agnew⁷, Lucy S Neal⁷

Affiliations

¹ School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK; Centre for Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Hazards, Public Health England, Chilton, UK. Electronic address: sara.fenech@um.edu.mt.
² School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
³ Met Office, Hadley Centre, FitzRoy Road, Exeter, UK.
⁴ Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering, University College London, Central House, 14 Woburn Place, London WC1H 0NN, UK.
⁵ Centre for Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Hazards, Public Health England, Chilton, UK; School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, UK.
⁶ National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Research School of Population Health, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.
⁷ Met Office, FitzRoy Road, Exeter, UK.

PMID: 33582353
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.145635

Abstract

Three Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) are used to simulate future ozone (O₃), nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), and fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) in the United Kingdom (UK) for the 2050s relative to the 2000s with an air quality model (AQUM) at a 12 km horizontal resolution. The present-day and future attributable fractions (AF) of mortality associated with long-term exposure to annual mean O₃, NO₂ and PM_2.5 have accordingly been estimated for the first time for regions across England, Scotland and Wales. Across the three RCPs (RCP2.6, RCP6.0 and RCP8.5), simulated annual mean of the daily maximum 8-h mean (MDA8) O₃ concentrations increase compared to present-day, likely due to decreases in NO_x (nitrogen oxides) emissions, leading to less titration of O₃ by NO. Annual mean NO₂ and PM_2.5 concentrations decrease under all RCPs for the 2050s, mostly driven by decreases in NO_x and sulphur dioxide (SO₂) emissions, respectively. The AF of mortality associated with long-term exposure to annual mean MDA8 O₃ is estimated to increase in the future across all the regions and for all RCPs. Reductions in NO₂ and PM_2.5 concentrations lead to reductions in the AF estimated for future periods under all RCPs, for both pollutants. Total mortality burdens are also highly sensitive to future population projections. Accounting for population projections exacerbates differences in total UK-wide MDA8 O₃-health burdens between present-day and future by up to a factor of ~3 but diminishes differences in NO₂-health burdens. For PM_2.5, accounting for future population projections results in additional UK-wide deaths brought forward compared to present-day under RCP2.6 and RCP6.0, even though the simulated PM_2.5 concentrations for the 2050s are estimated to decrease. Thus, these results highlight the sensitivity of future health burdens in the UK to future trends in atmospheric emissions over the UK as well as future population projections.

Keywords: Climate change; Health impacts; Nitrogen dioxide; Ozone; Particulate matter; Population projections; RCPs.