Is Air Pollution Correlated with Climate Change?

Introduction Since the Industrial Revolution in the 1850s, concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have increased rapidly, resulting in warming of the Earth’s surface and atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is the most well-studied of these greenhouse gases, and is used as a reference gas when assessing global warming potentials (GWPs)- the ability of other greenhouse gases, such as methane, to absorb heat energy in the atmosphere. The IPCC project that, depending on emissions, global mean temperatures could rise by up to 4.4°C by 2100[1] relative to pre-1900 levels, which could potentially result in sea level rises in excess of 1m, and cause significant changes to atmospheric circulation patterns, which would have significant impacts on human life. Over the same time period, rising emissions of substances such as nitrogen dioxide and airborne particulate matter from industrial activities and transportation have resulted in poor air quality being a major global health issue. The World Health Organisation estimate that there are 4.2million premature deaths per year caused by ambient (outdoor) air pollution[2], with an estimated 36,000 annual deaths in the UK alone[3].