Clean air policies are key for successfully mitigating Arctic warming

• Published in: Communications Earth & Environment
• Main Authors: 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
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2022
• Subjects: Human health
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/11250/3025242; https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-022-00555-x

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. publishedVersion