Climate Change Impacts on Human Health Due to Changes in Ambient Ozone Concentrations (External Review Draft)
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Abstract
This report uses results from a previous report titled Assessment of the Impacts of Global Change on Regional U.S. Air Quality: A Synthesis of Climate Change Impacts on Ground-Level Ozone, a number of high-resolution, spatially explicit population projections developed under the Integrated Climate and Land-Use Scenarios (ICLUS) project, and several existing health modeling tools and analyses including EPA’s Environmental Benefits Mapping and Analysis Program (BenMAP), to assess the potential range of health effects of climate change-induced changes in ground-level ozone concentrations.Reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the U.S. National Research Council (NRC) have stated that future climate change has the potential to cause air quality degradation via climate-induced changes in meteorology and atmospheric chemistry, posing challenges to the U.S. air quality management system and the effectiveness of its pollution mitigation strategies. For the past several years, the Global Change Research Program (GCRP) in EPA’s Office of Research and Development (ORD), in partnership with EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation (OAR) and the academic research community, has been evaluating the potential consequences of global climate change for air quality in the United States. An overview report of the initial phases of this effort, Assessment of the Impacts of Global Change on Regional U.S. Air Quality: A Synthesis of Climate Change Impacts on Ground-Level Ozone, describing the results from studies using linked climate change and air quality models to simulate the possible range of changes in ozone (O3) concentrations across the United States associated with future climate change, was released in April, 2009. A second EPA GCRP report, Land-Use Scenarios: National-Scale Housing-Density Scenarios Consistent with Climate Change Storylines, released in June 2009, describes the Integrated Climate and Land-Use Scenarios (ICLUS) project. Under ICLUS, a number of high-resolution, spatially explicit population projections consistent with assumptions in the IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) social, economic, and demographic storylines were developed for the United States. The work described in this new reports builds on these two efforts. Here, we take the next step of examining the potential indirect impacts of climate change on the health of a future U.S. population (c. 2050) via its direct impact on O3 concentrations. This analysis considers the health impacts associated with O3 changes induced only by future climate change. To achieve this, modeling scenarios were designed to simulate the response of O3 to global climate change alone without changes in anthropogenic emissions of ozone precursors (e.g., due to future air quality management efforts and/or future economic growth).
Impact/Purpose
This analysis considers the health impacts associated with O3 changes induced only by future climate change. To achieve this, modeling scenarios were designed to simulate the response of O3 to global climate change alone without changes in anthropogenic emissions of ozone precursors (e.g., due to future air quality management efforts and/or future economic growth).Status
Following a 45-day public comment period and review by a panel of outside experts, EPA will release the final draft of this report.Citation
U.S. EPA. Climate Change Impacts on Human Health Due to Changes in Ambient Ozone Concentrations (External Review Draft). U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/600/R-09/099A, 2010.History/Chronology
| Date | Description |
|---|---|
| 01- Apr 2009 | EPA released the final report,Assessment of the Impacts of Global Change on Regional U.S. Air Quality: A Synthesis of Climate Change Impacts on Ground-Level Ozone (An Interim Report of the U.S. EPA Global Change Research Program), which was instrumental in the development of this report. |
| 02- Sep 2009 | Internal EPA review of draft report. |
| 03- Mar 2010 | Draft report released for public review and comment. |
Additional Information
Comments on the assessment may be submitted and reviewed using the e-Government Regulations.gov Web site. From the site, select Environmental Protection Agency and the key word EPA- HQ-ORD-2009-0855 (for the docket ID).Download(s)
This download(s) is distributed solely for the purpose of pre-dissemination peer review under applicable information quality guidelines. It has not been formally disseminated by EPA. It does not represent and should not be construed to represent any Agency determination or policy.