Sensitivity of air quality to potential future climate change and emissions in the United States and major cities

Climate in a given location influences people's housing decisions, and changes in climate may affect these decisions in ways that alter our understanding of desirable locations. This study examines the potential sensitivity of future housing prices in the United States to changes in temperature, precipitation, and humidity by developing a hedonic regression model of the relationship between climate variables and housing prices and exploring implications of different climate futures for the amenity value of climate in these prices. The model shows a significant relationship between housing prices in urban areas and certain climate variables. The study then examines the sensitivity of the amenity value of climate to future climate scenarios. Results suggest that, nationally, climate change represents a disamenity, particularly in central-to-southeastern states. However, detailed housing prices vary spatially and among scenarios. Seasonal variation in temperature, including the relative magnitudes of the change in January and July temperatures, is a key determinant of housing price change, contributing to variation across both climate scenarios and geographic location.

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Impacts of oak pollen on allergic asthma in the United States and potential influence of future climate change

GeoHealth ◽

10.1002/2017gh000055 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 1 (3) ◽

pp. 80-92 ◽

Cited By ~ 19

Author(s):

Susan C. Anenberg ◽

Kate R. Weinberger ◽

Henry Roman ◽

James E. Neumann ◽

Allison Crimmins ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

United States ◽

Allergic Asthma ◽

The United States ◽

Future Climate ◽

Future Climate Change ◽

Potential Influence ◽

Oak Pollen

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Effects of future climate change on regional air pollution episodes in the United States

Geophysical Research Letters ◽

10.1029/2004gl021216 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 31 (24) ◽

Cited By ~ 162

Author(s):

L. J. Mickley

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

United States ◽

Air Pollution ◽

The United States ◽

Future Climate ◽

Future Climate Change ◽

Air Pollution Episodes ◽

Regional Air Pollution ◽

Pollution Episodes

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Assess 21st century Flash Drought in the United States using high resolution regional climate models

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-13102 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Brandi Gamelin ◽

Jiali Wang ◽

V. Rao Kotamarthi

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

United States ◽

Soil Moisture ◽

Climate Models ◽

Wrf Model ◽

The United States ◽

Future Climate Change ◽

Climate Change Scenarios ◽

Regional Variability ◽

Groundwater Levels

Flash droughts are the rapid intensification of drought conditions generally associated with increased temperatures and decreased precipitation on short time scales.&#160; Consequently, flash droughts are responsible for reduced soil moisture which contributes to diminished agricultural yields and lower groundwater levels. Drought management, especially flash drought in the United States is vital to address the human and economic impact of crop loss, diminished water resources and increased wildfire risk. In previous research, climate change scenarios show increased growing season (i.e. frost-free days) and drying in soil moisture over most of the United States by 2100. Understanding projected flash drought is important to assess regional variability, frequency and intensity of flash droughts under future climate change scenarios. Data for this work was produced with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. Initial and boundary conditions for the model were supplied by CCSM4, GFDL-ESM2G, and HadGEM2-ES and based on the 8.5 Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP8.5). The WRF model was downscaled to a 12 km spatial resolution for three climate time frames: 1995-2004 (Historical), 2045-2054 (Mid), and 2085-2094 (Late). &#160;A key characteristic of flash drought is the rapid onset and intensification of dry conditions. For this, we identify onset with vapor pressure deficit during each time frame. Known flash drought cases during the Historical run are identified and compared to flash droughts in the Mid and Late 21st century.

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Impacts of future climate change on soil frost in the midwestern United States

Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres ◽

10.1029/2009jd012188 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 115 (D8) ◽

Cited By ~ 26

Author(s):

Tushar Sinha ◽

Keith A. Cherkauer

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

United States ◽

Future Climate ◽

Future Climate Change ◽

Soil Frost ◽

Midwestern United States

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Impacts of future climate change and effects of biogenic emissions on surface ozone and particulate matter concentrations in US

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions ◽

10.5194/acpd-11-2183-2011 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

pp. 2183-2231 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Y. F. Lam ◽

J. S. Fu ◽

S. Wu ◽

L. J. Mickley

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

United States ◽

Air Quality ◽

Global Climate Change ◽

Global Climate ◽

Future Climate Change ◽

Biogenic Emissions ◽

Emissions Reduction ◽

Annual Average ◽

Future Emissions

Abstract. Simulations of present and future average regional ozone and PM2.5 concentrations over the United States were performed to investigate the potential impacts of global climate change and emissions on regional air quality using CMAQ. Various emissions and climate conditions with different biogenic emissions and domain resolutions were implemented to study the sensitivity of future air quality trends from the impacts of changing biogenic emissions. A comparison of GEOS-Chem and CMAQ was performed to investigate the effect of downscaling on the prediction of future air quality trends. For ozone, the impacts of global climate change are relatively smaller when compared to the impacts of anticipated future emissions reduction, except for the Northeast area, where increasing biogenic emissions due to climate change have stronger positive effects (increases) to the regional ozone air quality. The combination effect from both climate change and emission reductions leads to approximately a 10% or 5 ppbv decrease of the maximum daily average eight-hour ozone (MDA8) over the Eastern United States. For PM2.5, the impacts of global climate change have shown insignificant effect, where as the impacts of anticipated future emissions reduction account for the majority of overall PM2.5 reductions. The annual average 24-h PM2.5 of the future-year condition was found to be about 40% lower than the one from the present-year condition, of which 60% of its overall reductions are contributed to by the decrease of SO4 and NO3 particulate matters. Changing the biogenic emissions model increases the MDA8 ozone by about 5–10% or 3–5 ppbv in the Northeast area. Conversely, it reduces the annual average PM2.5 by 5% or 1.0 μg/m3 in the Southeast region.

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Effects of ozone and climate on historical (1980-2015) crop yields in the United States: Implication for mid-21st century projection

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-399 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Yabin Da ◽

Yangyang Xu ◽

Bruce McCarl

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

United States ◽

Winter Wheat ◽

Crop Yields ◽

Time Window ◽

Surface Ozone ◽

The United States ◽

Ozone Exposure ◽

Future Climate Change ◽

Ozone Pollution

Surface ozone pollution has been proven to impose significant damages on crops. However, the quantification of the damages was extensively derived from chamber experiments, which is not representative of actual results in farm fields due to the limitations of spatial scale, time window, etc. In this work, we attempt to empirically fill this gap using county-level data in the United States from 1980 to 2015. We explore ozone impacts on corn, soybeans, spring wheat, winter wheat, barley, cotton, peanuts, rice, sorghum, and sunflower. We also incorporate a variety of climate variables to investigate potential ozone-climate interactions. More importantly, we shed light on future yield consequences of ozone and climate change individually and jointly under a moderate warming scenario. Our findings suggest significant negative impacts of ozone exposure for eight of the ten crops we examined, excepting barley and winter wheat, which contradicts experimental results. The average annual damages were estimated at $6.03 billion (in 2015 U.S. dollar) from 1980 to 2015. We also find rising temperatures tend to worsen ozone damages while water supply would mitigate that. Finally, elevated ozone driven by future climate change would cause much smaller damages than the direct effects of climate change itself.

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Strong influence of 2000–2050 climate change on particulate matter in the United States: Results from a new statistical model

10.5194/acp-2016-954 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Lu Shen ◽

Loretta J. Mickley ◽

Lee T. Murray

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

United States ◽

Particulate Matter ◽

Air Quality ◽

Statistical Model ◽

The United States ◽

Anthropogenic Sources ◽

Meteorological Variables ◽

Eastern United States ◽

Low Cloud

Abstract. We use a statistical model to investigate the effect of 2000–2050 climate change on fine particulate matter (PM2.5) air quality across the contiguous United States. By applying observed relationships of PM2.5 and meteorology to the IPCC Coupled Model Intercomparision Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) archives, we bypass many of the uncertainties inherent in chemistry-climate models. Our approach uses both the relationships between PM2.5 and local meteorology as well as the synoptic circulation patterns, defined as the Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) pattern of the spatial correlations between PM2.5 and meteorological variables in the surrounding region. Using an ensemble of 17 GCMs under the RCP4.5 scenario, we project an increase of ~ 1 μg m−3 in annual mean PM2.5 in the eastern US and a decrease of 0.3–1.2 μg m−3 in the Intermountain West by the 2050s, assuming present-day anthropogenic sources of PM2.5. Mean summertime PM2.5 increases as much as 2–3 μg m−3 in the eastern United States due to faster oxidation rates and greater mass of organic carbon from biogenic emissions. Mean wintertime PM2.5 decreases by 0.3–3 μg m−3 over most regions in United States, likely due to the volatilization of ammonium nitrate. Our approach provides an efficient method to calculate the climate penalty or benefit on air quality across a range of models and scenarios. We find that current atmospheric chemistry models may underestimate or even fail to capture the strongly positive sensitivity of monthly mean PM2.5 to temperature in the eastern United States in summer, and may underestimate future changes in PM2.5 in a warmer climate. In GEOS-Chem, the underestimate in monthly mean PM2.5-temperature relationship in the East in summer is likely caused by overly strong negative sensitivity of monthly mean low cloud fraction to temperature in the assimilated meteorology (~ −0.04 K−1), compared to the weak sensitivity implied by satellite observations (±0.01 K−1). The strong negative dependence of low cloud cover on temperature, in turn, causes the modeled rates of sulfate aqueous oxidation to diminish too rapidly as temperatures rise, leading to the underestimate of sulfate-temperature slopes, especially in the South. Our work underscores the importance of evaluating the sensitivity of PM2.5 to its key controlling meteorological variables in climate-chemistry models on multiple timescales before they are applied to project future air quality.

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