Anthropogenic air pollution more significant than desert dust
In the Middle East, more than 90 percent of the fine aerosol particles that are detrimental to health and the climate originate from human-made sources
Peer-Reviewed PublicationIn 2017, an international team headed by the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry travelled around the Arabian Peninsula on a research vessel in a spectacular expedition. Various measuring instruments were kept on board to sample aerosol particles and trace gases such as ozone and nitric oxides. The researchers also discovered that the Suez Canal, the northern Red Sea and especially the Arabian Gulf are regional hotspots for ozone; the exceptionally strong concentration of ozone in these areas indicates that the harmful gas is also a problem in other densely populated regions of the Arabian Peninsula. Furthermore, the scientists found that concentrations of nitrogen oxides were significantly higher than the WHO guidelines.
"There are relatively few measurements from the region around the Arabian Peninsula and in the Middle East in general. That is why this research campaign is so important," says Sergey Osipov, an atmospheric physicist at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz and the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia. “We used the data in atmospheric chemistry models in order to draw conclusions about general air quality and health consequences.”
Air pollution in the Middle East leads to high mortality rates
"The thresholds for particulate matter are constantly exceeded in the region, which is home to 400 million people," says Jos Lelieveld, director at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and project leader. “While the measurements have been performed several years ago, looking into the data more closely with new atmospheric modeling tools surprisingly showed that the health hazardous fraction of the pollution particles is almost exclusively human-made”. In addition to numerous researchers from Mainz, scientists from Kuwait, the Cyprus Institute, as well as from Saudi Arabia, France and the USA were also involved in the project. "The extreme air pollution results in an annual excess mortality rate of 745 people per 100,000. It has similar significance to other leading health risk factors, such as high cholesterol and tobacco smoking, and is also comparable to the mortality rate of COVID-19," adds the atmospheric scientist, who is also a professor at the Cyprus Institute in Nicosia. Given that anthropogenic air pollution is a key factor in climate change in the Middle East as well, measures to reduce emissions are all the more important, he said.
JOURNAL
Communications Earth & Environment
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Observational study
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
Not applicable
ARTICLE TITLE
Severe atmospheric pollution in the Middle East is attributable to anthropogenic sources
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
22-Sep-2022
Anthropogenic air pollution impacts health and climate in the Middle East
Peer-Reviewed PublicationIMAGE: A VISIBLE LAYER OF AIR POLLUTION STRETCHES OUT ACROSS THE SEA. PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN FROM THE RESEARCH VESSEL DURING THE AQABA CAMPAIGN. view more
CREDIT: © 2022 AQABA PROJECT.
Desert dust was assumed to be the primary contributor to elevated air pollution across the Middle East. Now, an international team of scientists including researchers from KAUST has shown that pollution from anthropogenic sources contributes to health risks and is an important climate factor across the region.
“The conventional thinking was that dust carried by storms over the Arabian Peninsula dominated air quality over the region,” says Sergey Osipov from the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Chemistry, whose team worked on the project, KAUST’s Georgiy Stenchikov and Alexander Ukhov, and colleagues from King Saud University and The Cyprus Institute.
“Our research has demonstrated that hazardous fine particulate matter, which is distinct from the less harmful coarse desert dust particles, is largely anthropogenic in origin and is a leading health risk factor, as well a significant contributor to climate change,” Osipov says.
Air pollution accounts for around 745 per 100,000 excess deaths per year in the region, says Osipov, which is similar to other leading health risk factors, such as tobacco smoking and high cholesterol.
Previous modeling studies on air quality across the Middle East tend to overestimate the fraction of the desert dust, obscuring the contribution to poor air quality from anthropogenic sources, adds Osipov. “Such models produce semicorrect answers for the wrong reason, because they poorly represent a significant component of anthropogenic fine particle pollution in the region."
The lack of observation data, combined with a poor representation of emission sources, has “significantly hindered our ability to model the chemical composition of the atmosphere in the region,” says Osipov.
To address this scarcity of data, the team, led by Jos Lelieveld from MPI for Chemistry, collected measurements taken at sea as part of the international collaboration, called Air Quality and climate in the Arabian Basin (AQABA). The measurements, collected over two months during the summer of 2017, covered various ambient conditions ranging from pristine in the remote atmosphere to heavy pollution and dust storms.
Analysis of the AQABA data provided comprehensive constraints on the dust size distribution, which allowed more realistic simulation of the mass flux and life cycle of dust. As a result, the team was able to model the realistic chemical composition of the aerosol across the entire size range.
“We found that particulate matter from anthropogenic sources accounted for around 53 percent of aerosol visible optical depth and induces a radiative forcing on the climate equivalent to that of the natural dust in the region,” says Osipov. “Our study highlights how anthropogenic air pollution is a leading health risk and important climactic factor across the Middle East.”
The study shows that exposure to air pollution is one of the lead causes of premature mortality in Saudi Arabia.
CREDIT
© 2022 AQABA project.
JOURNAL
Nature Communications
ARTICLE TITLE
Severe atmospheric pollution in the Middle East is attributable to anthropogenic sources
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
22-Sep-2022
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