Research challenges for air pollution in Asia: Perspectives from International Global 　 Atmospheric Chemistry (IGAC) Project

1. Research Challenges for Air Pollution in Asia
Perspectives from IGAC
Hiroshi Tanimoto
Global Atmospheric Chemistry Section,
National Institute for Environmental Studies, Japanemail: tanimoto@nies.go.jp
NASA GEOS-5

2. Fostering Community• Building Capacity • Providing Leadership
Facilitating atmospheric chemistry research
toward a sustainable world

3. New IGAC’s Vision

4. 2017 IGAC Scientific Steering Committee
Fostering Community
Mark Lawrence (Co-Chair), Germany
Hiroshi Tanimoto (Co-Chair), Japan
Paul Beukes, South Africa
Jim Crawford, USA
Greg Frost, USA
Christian George, France
Michel Grutter, Mexico
Colette Heald, USA
Judith Hoelzemann, Brazil
Alastair Lewis, UK
Clare Murphy, Australia
Jennifer Murphy, Canada
Manish Naja, India
Kim Oanh, Thailand
Spyros Pandis, Greece
Tao Wang, China
Noureddine Yassaa, Algeria

5. CATCH
Providing Leadership
IGAC Sponsored/Endorsed Activities

6. IGAC National/Regional Working Groups
Building Capacity
IGAC builds capacity in developing countries/regions by
creating a strong cohesive community of atmospheric scientists
that together have a sum greater than their parts and connects
these scientists to the larger IGAC community to foster
international collaborations.

7. Research Challenge for Air Pollution
n Why? : Impacts on
n human health – toxicity, acute/chronic effects
n climate change – warming effects
n How can we challenge the AP-HH & AP-CC issues in Asia?
n Better understanding the processes controlling O3 and PM2.5
n Emissions
n Building scientific community/capacity to link to policy processes
Three Perspectives from IGAC:
International, Global, and Atmospheric Chemistry point of view

8. More people die from air pollution than Malaria & HIV
n In Asia, RCO in China/India, BB in SE Asia, AGR in Japan/Korea, dust in Middle East
n Control policy needs to be different for different regions
Lelieveld et al., Nature, 2015

9. Mitigation of Near-term Climate Change
n In addition to continuing effort to reduce CO2 emissions, reducing BC &
CH4(à O3) help mitigate global warming through 2070
Shindell et al., Science, 2012

10. Interaction of Air Pollution with Climate Change

11. Research Challenge for Air Pollution
n Why? : Impacts on
n human health – toxicity, acute/chronic effects
n climate change – warming effects
n How can we challenge the AP-HH & AP-CC issues in Asia?
n Better understanding the processes controlling O3 and PM2.5
n Emissions
n Building scientific community/capacity to link to policy processes

12. Emission Estimates are Important in Modeling Air Pollution
India
USA W-Europe
Granier et al. (2011)
China
n Large uncertainty in magnitude, direction, timing of the growth
n This matters when modeling air pollution to avoid acute air pollution episodes
- Chemical Weather Forecast

13. Observations of Air Pollutants from Space
n Satellite observations provide great top-down constraints on
the emissions inventories of air pollutants - NO2, CO, CO2,
etc…
www.nasa.gov

14. OMIObservations of Air Pollutants from Space

15. OMI
?
?
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Observations of Air Pollutants from Space

16. Smog enveloping buildings on the outskirts of Delhi
Photograph: Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images

17. Links to Policy Processes
n UNEP/Task Force HTAP
n 2007 interim report
n 2010 report
n Air Pollutants
n O3
n Aerosol (PM)
n Hg
n POPS

18. CLRTAP: Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution
n CLRTAP is originally for UNECE region
n No Asian nations participate in CLRTAP
n No international framework for air pollution in Asia

19. Only A Few Atmospheric Chemists in Asia!

20. IGAC-MANGO
Monsoon Asia & Oceania Networking Group
Co-leads: Hiroshi Tanimoto, Nguyen Thi Kim Oanh, Manish Naja
Asian Institute of Technology, 11-12 June 2015
45 participants from 23 different countries

21. Common Questions/Issues in Asia
n Common questions
n air quality, biomass burning, haze-transboundary pollution
n health impact, indoor air quality
n Common issues (severity depends on country)
n air quality is not concerned, relative to water quality
n limited funding at national level
n # of scientists
n local networking of scientists
n instruments/equipments
n modeling capability
n int’l collaboration (JICA, NASA, …)
n Funding and infrastructure are needed to foster scientific
research, capacity building, and regional collaborations

22. Towards Equal Opportunity for Air Quality
n The ultimate goals of air pollution research are:
n to better protect people’s health and ecosystems
n to better mitigate global warming
n Accurate emission estimates are one of key scientific
challenges. Satellites with higher spatial resolution help us
better identify sector-specific emissions, and investigate NOx-
saturated regimes in urban grid for non-linear chemistry. This
initiative needs strong community support.
n There is no international framework for air pollution in Asia,
and definitely needs one
n Scientific community in Asia should be strengthened, with an
emphasis on air pollution