Projection of the Near-Future PM2.5 in Northern Peninsular Southeast Asia under RCP8.5

Teerachai Amnuaylojaroen,Vanisa Surapipith,Ronald C Macatangay

doi:10.3390/atmos13020305

Teerachai Amnuaylojaroen, Vanisa Surapipith + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos13020305

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Abstract

Throughout the year, particularly during the dry season, the northern peninsula of Southeast Asia struggles with air pollution from PM2.5. In this study, we used the Nested Regional Climate and Chemistry Model (NRCM-Chem) to predict the PM2.5 concentrations over Southeast Asia’s northern peninsula during the years 2020–2029 under the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP)8.5. In general, the model reasonably shows a good result, including temperature, precipitation, and PM2.5 concentration, compared to the observation with an Index of Agreement (IOA) in the range of 0.63 to 0.80. However, there were some underestimations for modeled precipitation and temperature and an overestimation for modeled PM2.5 concentration. As a response to changes in climatic parameters and the emission of PM2.5’s precursors, PM2.5 concentrations tend to increase across the region in the range of (+1) to (+35) µg/m3 during the dry season (November to April) and decline in the range of (−3) to (−30) µg/m3 during the wet season (May to October). The maximum increase in PM2.5 concentrations were found in March by >40 µg/m3.

Highlights

The level of air pollution is influenced by a mixture of emissions and weather conditions [1]
Recent estimates of worldwide premature death rates based on high-resolution global O3 and PM2.5 models suggest that Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific account for roughly 25% and 45% of global mortality, respectively [14,15]
For the 2 m-temperature and precipitation, the model results were compared to the observation data, while the modeled PM2.5 was compared to both estimation techniques during 1990–1999 and ground-based measurements in 2020

Summary

Introduction

The level of air pollution is influenced by a mixture of emissions and weather conditions [1]. Certain meteorological and topographic factors are favorable conditions that contribute to air pollution in Southeast Asia. All these variables come together in the northern peninsular region of Southeast Asia, or the northern part of Thailand. Controlling air pollutant emissions may have a greater direct influence on air quality and, as a result, human health than slowing climate change [12]. While Kumar et al [26] used a state-of-the-art Nested Regional Climate model with Chemistry (NRCM-Chem) to investigate the combined influence of changes in climate and air pollutant emissions projected by the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP)8.5 and RCP6.0 on air quality in South Asia in 2050. Lee et al [8] discovered that nitrate aerosol was the most common component of PM2.5 particles in Southeast Asia

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