Topic 9: Climate change and air quality (KIT, FZJ, HMGU, DLR, KIT University Sector, University Köln, Technische Universität München)
How is the air quality affected by climate change? What are the potential impacts of climate change and air quality changes on human health? How can these various interconnections and reactions be integrated in numerical climate and air quality models? What kind of measured data is required in order to make quantitative characterisations of these effects possible?
To date climate change and air quality are mostly considered isolated but in fact, both processes strongly influence each other. Because of the consequences and impact of air quality on human health, interconnections between climate change and air quality have to be investigated.
Research on the relationship between regional climate and air quality aims to provide improved predictions especially regarding the impact of regional climate change on human health in cities and densely populated areas.
The development of coupled models, the parametrization of aerosol and cloud processes, the analysis of multiple data sources (ground stations, aircrafts, satellites), pose particular scientific and technical challenges and build the basis for data provision, model evaluation and determination of emission patterns and intensities.
Figure 1:
The complex interactions among the key aspects of this topic are shown in Figure 1. Green arrows show the direct influence of climate change on human health, air quality and emissions; red arrows show the direct influence of emissions on climate change, air quality and the influence of air quality on climate change and health. The complexity of these direct and indirect interactions demands a well-coordinated approach. Depending on the research area, various working methods are being used, such as chemistry climate models, laboratory studies, inverse modeling and field measurements (including satellite data).