Climate Change Effects on Annual Average Concentrations of Fine Particulate Matter (PM2.5) in California (original) (raw)

2008

Abstract

California has one of the worst particulate air pollution problems in the nation with some estimates predicting more than 5000 premature deaths each year attributed to air pollution. Climate change will modify weather patterns in California with unknown consequences for PM2.5. Previous down-scaling exercises carried out for the entire United States have typically not resolved the details associated with California's mountain-valley topography and mixture of urban-rural emissions characteristics. Detailed studies carried out for California have identified strong effects acting in opposite directions on PM2.5 concentrations making the net prediction for climate effects on PM2.5 somewhat uncertain. More research is needed to reduce this uncertainty so that we can truly understand climate impacts on PM2.5 and public health. The objective of this research is to predict climate change effects on annual average concentrations of particulate matter (PM2.5) in California with sufficient resolution to capture the details of California's air basins. Business-as-usual scenarios generated by the Parallel Climate Model (PCM) will be down-scaled to 4km meteorology using the Weather Research Forecast (WRF) model. The CIT/UCD source-oriented photochemical air quality model will be employed to predict PM2.5 concentrations throughout the entire state of California. The modeled annual average total and speciated PM2.5 concentrations for the future (2047-2049) and the present-day (2004-2006) periods will be compared to determine climate change effects. The results from this study will improve our understanding of global climate change effects on PM2.5 concentrations in California.

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