02/16/2010
Methods Developed for Assessing the Health Effects of Ozone
Summary
A method has been developed for assessing the impacts of climate change on the future human health and economic impacts of ozone pollution. The analysis uses the DOE-funded MIT Emissions Prediction and Policy Analysis-Health Effects model in combination with a global tropospheric chemistry model. The investigators simulated the impacts of various emission scenarios on climate and atmospheric chemistry over the period 2000-2050, with a focus on the acute mortality and morbidity caused by ozone pollution and the economic impacts in sixteen world regions. They estimated that health costs due to global ozone pollution above pre-industrial levels will be $580 billion by 2050 (year 2000 dollars) and that acute mortalities will exceed 2 million. The results imply that previous methodologies underestimate costs of air pollution by more than a third because they do not take into account the long-term, compounding effects of health costs.
References
Selin, N., S. Wu, K.-M. Nam, J. Reilly, S. Paltsev, R. Prinn, and M. Webster. 2009. “Global Health and Economic Impacts of Future Ozone Pollution,” Environmental Research Letters 4(4), 044014. DOI:10.1088/1748-9326/4/044104.