Not Just Desert Dust: Anthropogenic Air Pollution Impacts Health and Climate in the Middle East



It was thought that the Middle East's increased air pollution was mostly caused by desert dust. An international team of experts, including those from King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST), has now demonstrated how anthropogenic pollution affects the region's climate and poses a health concern.

According to Sergey Osipov from the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Chemistry, "the prevalent thinking was that dust brought by storms over the Arabian Peninsula dominated air quality over the region." His team collaborated on the project alongside colleagues from King Saud University and The Cyprus Institute as well as Georgiy Stenchikov and Alexander Ukhov of KAUST.

According to Osipov, "Our research has shown that dangerous fine particulate matter, which is different from the less damaging coarse desert dust particles, is mostly anthropogenic in origin and is a primary risk factor for health as well as a significant contributor to climate change."

According to Osipov, air pollution contributes to 745 extra deaths per 100,000 people in the area each year, a rate that is comparable to that of other major health risk factors like smoking and high cholesterol.

According to Osipov, earlier modeling studies on air quality in the Middle East frequently overestimate the percentage of dust from the desert, hiding the role that anthropogenic sources play in the region's poor air quality. As a result of their inadequate representation of a substantial portion of the region's anthropogenic fine particle pollution, such models "generate semi-correct results for the wrong reasons."

The study demonstrates that one of the main factors contributing to early mortality in Saudi Arabia is exposure to air pollution. Credit: AQABA project 2022

Our capacity to predict the chemical composition of the atmosphere in the area has been "seriously hampered" by a paucity of observation data and a poor representation of emission sources, claims Osipov                                                
The researchers, lead by Jos Lelieveld from MPI for Chemistry, gathered measurements made at sea as part of the worldwide partnership known as Air Quality and climate in the Arabian Basin to solve this data deficiency (AQABA). The observations were taken over a two-month period in the summer of 2017, and they covered a range of atmospheric conditions, from pristine in the far-off atmosphere to intense pollution and dust storms.

A more accurate modeling of the mass flux and life cycle of dust was possible because to the analysis of the AQABA data, which offered extensive limitations on the dust size distribution. As a result, the group was able to simulate the aerosol's chemical makeup across the whole size range.

According to Osipov, "We observed that anthropogenic particulate matter accounted for about 53 percent of aerosol visible optical depth and generates a radiative forcing on the climate equivalent to that of the natural dust in the region." "Our study demonstrates how anthropogenic air pollution is a significant climatic and health danger in the Middle East."

By KAUST 

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