MOTHER NATURE Mother Nature September 2017 | Page 6

Mother Nature Aug /Sep 2017
5
Climate Change can cause about 60,000
extra deaths globally
260,000 deaths annually by 2100, as a result of the impact of these changes on pollution.
Climate change is set to increase the
amount of ground-level ozone
and fine particle pollution we
breathe, which leads to
lung disease, heart
conditions,
and
stroke. Less rain
and more heat
means this pollution
will stay in the air for
longer, creating more
health problems.
A research, published in
Nature Climate Change, found that
if climate change continues unabated, it will
cause about 60,000 extra deaths globally each
year by 2030, and 260,000 deaths annually by
2100, as a result of the impact of these changes
on pollution.
This is the most comprehensive study to date on
the effects of climate change on global air quality
and health. Researchers from the United States,
the United Kingdom, France, Japan and New
Zealand between them used nine different global
chemistry-climate models.
Most models showed an increase in likely deaths
– the clearest signal yet of the harm climate
change will do to air quality and human health,
adding to the millions of people who die from air
pollution every year. Ground-level ozone is created when
chemical pollution (such as
emissions from cars or
manufacturing
plants) reacts in
the presence of
sunlight. As cli-
mate change
makes an area
warmer
and
drier, it will produce
more ozone.
Fine particles are a
mixture of small solids and
liquid droplets suspended in air.
Examples include black carbon, organic carbon,
Stagnant air scenarios.
Climate change fundamentally alters the air cur-
rents that move pollution across continents and
between the lower and higher layers of the atmo-
sphere. This means that where air becomes more
stagnant in a future climate, pollution stays near
the ground in higher concentrations. This assumes large population growth, modest im-
soot, smoke and dust. These fine particles, which
are known to cause lung diseases, are emitted from
industry, transport and residential sources.
Less rain means that fine particles stay in the air for
longer. While fine particles and ozone both occur
naturally, human activity has increased them
substantially.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
has used four different future climate scenarios,
representing optimistic to pessimistic levels of
emissions reduction. In a previous study, which
modelled air pollution-related deaths between 2000
and 2100 based on the most pessimistic of these
provements in emissions-reducing
technology,
and ineffectual climate change policy. That earlier
study found that while global deaths related to ozone
increase in the future, those related to fine particles
decrease markedly under this scenario.