Looking ahead 50 years in the Pacific Northwest, researchers in the WSU Laboratory for Atmospheric Research have concluded that there will be more days of poor air quality.
(Photo of Brian Lamb and PhD student, Jack Chen, discussing computer modeling for the global change, air quality project.)
Several cities in the region can expect to see an increase in the number of days in which they have unhealthy levels of smog and most cities will see higher ozone levels on future summer days.
Brian Lamb, a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, is leading the research group. With support from the Environmental Protection Agency and in collaboration with the National Center for Atmospheric Research, University of Washington and the Pacific Northwest Forest Service Center, the group is modeling air quality in the U.S. in the middle of the 21st century.
The group is looking at such questions as how global warming will affect air quality on regional and urban scales, how land use change affects air quality, and how fire and fire management affects regional air quality.
The researchers used a combination of computer models that predict future climate change, meteorology and emissions to look at 36 kilometer grids in the continental U.S. in the present decade and a future decade in 2050.
They also compared five current summers with five future summers. The researchers found that the biggest affects on future air quality come from increases in pollutant emissions in the U.S. and globally, rather than from changes in area meteorology due to climate change.
“It’s not a surprise that there are going to be increases in ozone levels,” said Lamb. “At some point, it seems that we have to wake up.”
For more information, contact Brian Lamb at blamb@wsu.edu
