Mitigation of ozone damage to the world’s land ecosystems by source sector

Nadine Unger (), Yiqi Zheng, Xu Yue and Kandice L. Harper
Additional contact information
Nadine Unger: University of Exeter
Yiqi Zheng: University of Alaska Fairbanks
Xu Yue: Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology
Kandice L. Harper: Yale University

Nature Climate Change, 2020, vol. 10, issue 2, 134-137

Abstract: Abstract Surface ozone damages photosynthesis and reduces the ability of land ecosystems to assimilate carbon from the atmosphere thereby further increasing global warming1,2. Ozone is not emitted directly but formed in the atmosphere during complex chemical reactions of precursors, carbon monoxide, methane, non-methane volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides, in sunlight. These ozone precursors are emitted from a wide range of anthropogenic activities. Reductions in ozone precursor emissions are needed to mitigate ozone vegetation damage but it is unclear which are the most effective source sectors to target. Here, we apply a global Earth system model to compare the benefits to gross primary productivity of stringent 50% emission reductions in the seven largest anthropogenic ozone source sectors. Deep cuts in air pollutant emissions from road transportation and the energy sector are the most effective mitigation measures for ozone-induced gross primary productivity losses in Eastern China, Eastern United States, Europe and globally. Our results suggest that mitigation of ozone vegetation damage is a unique opportunity to contribute to negative carbon emissions, offering a natural climate solution that links fossil fuel emission abatement, air quality and climate. However, achieving these benefits requires ambitious mitigation pathways that tackle multiple source sectors.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-019-0678-3 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcli:v:10:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1038_s41558-019-0678-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nclimate/

DOI: 10.1038/s41558-019-0678-3

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Climate Change is currently edited by Bronwyn Wake

More articles in Nature Climate Change from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().