Strengthening Cooperation on Air Pollution Impacts in the Arctic and Beyond

• Main Authors: KEATING T., DENTENER Franciscus, ROUIL L., FORSIUS Martin, WILSON Simon, GRENFELT Peringe, BUTLER Tim
• Language: English
• Published: Internationl Global Atmospheric Chemistry Project 2016
• Subjects: AMAP; Arctic Council; Arctic monitoring and assessment program; black carbon; Climate change; Human health
• Online Access: https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC105645; http://igacproject.org/

Air pollution has a wide variety of impacts, affecting human health, ecosystems, and climate both near the source and far away. Over the last 10 years the Task Force on Hemispheric Transport of Air Pollution (TF HTAP) under the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Convention on Long- range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP) has worked with an international scientific network of experts from Europe, North America, and Asia to improve the understanding of the intercontinental transport of air pollution across the Northern Hemisphere, through systematic modelling intercomparisons, assessment of observational evidence and development of impact assessment methods. Although HTAP’s efforts cover the entire Northern Hemisphere, only some work has been performed to also evaluate impacts on the Arctic. The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP) is the Working Group of the Arctic Council that is responsible for monitoring and assessing the status of the Arctic region with respect to pollution and climate change issues. Over the past 25 years, the AMAP monitoring programme has documented pollution levels and trends, pathways and processes, and effects on ecosystems and humans. The results of this monitoring effort have formed the basis for a series of AMAP assessments prepared by independent groups of scientific experts. These assessments cover a range of air pollution issues including Acidification and Arctic haze, Mercury and other trace metals, Persistent Organic Pollutants, and most recently Short-lived Climate Forcers (Black Carbon and Ozone, and Methane). These scientific outreach products and policy-makers summaries typically also propose actions to reduce associated threats and are specifically developed to inform decision-makers of the Arctic Council, governments and other relevant international fora. During the first day of a recent workshop, hosted by the IASS in Potsdam, Germany, the TF HTAP and AMAP explored opportunities to strengthen their cooperation on future scientific work to ...