Air pollution accountability of energy transitions: the relative importance of point source emissions and wind fields in exposure changes.

ABSTRACT: Recent studies have sought epidemiological evidence of the effectiveness of energy transitions. Such evidence often relies on so-called "natural experiments," wherein environmental and/or health outcomes are assessed before, during, and after the transition of interest. Often, these studies attribute air pollution exposure changes-either modeled or measured-directly to the transition. We formalize a framework for separating the fractions of a given exposure change attributable to meteorological variability and emissions changes. Using this framework, we quantify relative impacts of wind variability and emissions changes from coal-fired power plants on exposure to SO₂ emissions across the United States under three unique combinations of spatial-temporal and source scales. We find

SUBMITTER: Henneman LR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7785107 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature