Skip to content
Scientific journal publication

Clean air policies are key for successfully mitigating Arctic warming

von Salzen, Knut; Whaley, Cynthia; Anenberg, Susan C.; Van Dingenen, Rita; Klimont, Zbigniew; Flanner, Mark G.; Mahmood, Rashed; Arnold, Stephen R.; Beagley, Stephen; Chien, Rong-You; Christensen, Jesper H.; Eckhardt, Sabine; Ekman, Annica M. L.; Evangeliou, Nikolaos; Faluvegi, Greg; Fu, Joshua S.; Gauss, Michael; Gong, Wanmin; Hjorth, Jens; Im, Ulas; Krishnan, Srinath; Kupiainen, Kaarle; Kuhn, Thomas; Langner, Joakim; Law, Kathy S.; Marelle, Louis; Oliviè, Dirk Jan Leo; Onishi, Tatsuo; Oshima, Naga; Paunu, Ville-Veikko; Peng, Yiran; Plummer, David; Pozzoli, Luca; Rao-Skirbekk, Shilpa; Raut, Jean-Christophe; Sand, Maria; Schmale, Julia; Sigmond, Michael; Thomas, Manu Anna; Tsigaridis, Kostas; Tsyro, Svetlana; Turnock, Steven T.; Wang, Minqi; Winter, Barbara

Publication details

Journal: Communications Earth & Environment, vol. 3, 222, 2022

Arkiv: hdl.handle.net/11250/3025242
Doi: doi.org/10.1038/s43247-022-00555-x

Summary:
A tighter integration of modeling frameworks for climate and air quality is urgently needed to assess the impacts of clean air policies on future Arctic and global climate. We combined a new model emulator and comprehensive emissions scenarios for air pollutants and greenhouse gases to assess climate and human health co-benefits of emissions reductions. Fossil fuel use is projected to rapidly decline in an increasingly sustainable world, resulting in far-reaching air quality benefits. Despite human health benefits, reductions in sulfur emissions in a more sustainable world could enhance Arctic warming by 0.8 °C in 2050 relative to the 1995–2014, thereby offsetting climate benefits of greenhouse gas reductions. Targeted and technically feasible emissions reduction opportunities exist for achieving simultaneous climate and human health co-benefits. It would be particularly beneficial to unlock a newly identified mitigation potential for carbon particulate matter, yielding Arctic climate benefits equivalent to those from carbon dioxide reductions by 2050.