Atmospheric health burden across the century and the accelerating impact of temperature compared to pollution

Andrea Pozzer (), Brendan Steffens, Yiannis Proestos, Jean Sciare, Dimitris Akritidis, Sourangsu Chowdhury, Katrin Burkart and Sara Bacer
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Andrea Pozzer: Max Planck Institute for Chemistry
Brendan Steffens: Max Planck Institute for Chemistry
Yiannis Proestos: The Cyprus Institute
Jean Sciare: The Cyprus Institute
Dimitris Akritidis: Max Planck Institute for Chemistry
Sourangsu Chowdhury: CICERO Center for International Climate Research
Katrin Burkart: University of Washington
Sara Bacer: Max Planck Institute for Chemistry

Nature Communications, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Anthropogenic emissions alter atmospheric composition and therefore the climate, with implications for air pollution- and climate-related human health. Mortality attributable to air pollution and non-optimal temperature is a major concern, expected to shift under future climate change and socioeconomic scenarios. In this work, results from numerical simulations are used to assess future changes in mortality attributable to long-term exposure to both non-optimal temperature and air pollution simultaneously. Here we show that under a realistic scenario, end-of-century mortality could quadruple from present-day values to around 30 (95% confidence level:12-53) million people/year. While pollution-related mortality is projected to increase five-fold, temperature-related mortality will experience a seven-fold rise, making it a more important health risk factor than air pollution for at least 20% of the world’s population. These findings highlight the urgent need to implement stronger climate policies to prevent future loss of life, outweighing the benefits of air quality improvements alone.

Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-53649-9

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