CLIMATE SCIENCE: Urban Air Quality

Urban Air Quality Management

Air quality and climate connections.

UNLABELLED Multiple linkages connect air quality and climate change. Many air pollutant sources also emit carbon dioxide (CO2), the dominant anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG). The two main contributors to non-attainment of U.S. ambient air quality standards, ozone (O3) and particulate matter (PM), interact with radiation, forcing climate change. PM warms by absorbing sunlight (e.g., black carb...

Urban Structure and Air Quality

Effect of climate change on air quality

Air quality is strongly dependent on weather and is therefore sensitive to climate change. Recent studies have provided estimates of this climate effect through correlations of air quality with meteorological variables, perturbation analyses in chemical transport models (CTMs), and CTM simulations driven by general circulation model (GCM) simulations of 21st-century climate change. We review th...

Air Quality in a Changing Climate

Once, in the not so distant past, smoke belching from urban factories and plants was viewed as a symbol of a prosperous, growing economy with abundant jobs. However, awareness of the downside of such pollution spawned the environmental movement of the 1960s, culminating in the Clean Air Act Amendment of 1970. This landmark legislation provided the regulatory mandates and legal tools that stimul...