Cenlin He (NSF NCAR, USA)
Maria de Fatima Andrade (University of Sao Paulo, Brazil)
Guy Brasseur (Max-Planck Institution, Germany; NSF NCAR, USA)
Akinori Takami (National Institute for Environmental Studies, Japan)
Alberto Martilli (CIEMAT, Spain)
Laura E. Dawidowski (National San Martín University, Argentina)
Liya E. Yu (National University of Singapore, Singapore)
May Fu (Southern University of Science and Technology, China)
Rebecca Garland (University of Pretoria, South Africa)
Tao Wang (Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China)
Thomas Clasen (Emory University, USA)
Background:
Urban environment plays a unique and critical role in the Earth system. Air pollution and
atmospheric chemistry can interact with urban meteorology and emissions in a complex way,
which has not been fully understood. Urban is also the most populated region where air pollution
can exert significant adverse impacts on human health, with potential environmental justice
issues. Moreover, different urban regions may have their own characteristics for air pollution and
interaction with climate, which requires international collaboration and coordination. Thus, this
proposed U-APIC activity aims to address this imperative topic.
Currently, there are no IGAC activities specifically dedicated to urban air quality and
interactions with unique urban climate/weather environments. Existing IGAC activities may
cover certain aspects of urban air pollution, which however are lack of primary foci on
interaction with urban climate and extremes and associated impact on environmental justice and
public health. This brings opportunities for cross-activity collaborations between existing IGAC
activities and the U-APIC activity.
Overarching goals:
Our goals are to leverage both observational and modeling capabilities to improve the
understanding and quantification of urban air pollution affected by urban emissions and
climate/weather and associated feedback to urban climate/weather as well as the impacts on
public health and environmental justice, and to provide useful scientific basis and guidance to
enhance policy making and benefit the public. This U-APIC activity is unique on several aspects:
(1) filling in knowledge gaps of cross-scale complex chemistry-climate interactions in unique
urban environments under climate change; (2) connecting urban air pollution and
climate/weather extremes to public health and environmental justice; (3) advocating the
engagement with the society (e.g., local community and stakeholders) to promote actionable
sciences.
Science questions:
(1) What are the urban emissions (particularly biogenic emissions) and associated impacts on air
pollution under climate change, urbanization, urban climate adaptation, decreasing
anthropogenic sources, and extreme events?
(2) How are atmospheric chemistry processes affected by urban emissions and meteorology
compared to rural and remote areas, and what is their feedback to urban climate/weather?
(3) How does urban air pollution interact with surrounding rural environments and long-range
transported (inter-regional and inter-continental) pollution?
(4) How do urban air pollution-meteorology interactions change across spatial scales, ranging
from micro-scale chemistry-turbulence interaction to global chemistry-climate interplay?
(5) What are the effects of urban air pollution and climate extremes on public health and
associated environmental justice issues?
(6) What are the effective pathways and actionable solutions to mitigate adverse impacts from
urban air pollution and climate extremes, particularly through engaging with local
community and stakeholders, capacity building, and educational outreach?
For more information, see here!
We are currently actively expanding our community and are interested in forming working groups. If you are interested in contributing to the U-APIC activity, please email us at u-apic@igacproject.org
Sign up for the mailing list here or email u-apic@igacproject.org with your name, institution, and email address to sign up.