Potential effects of climate change on global air quality and human health

Samermit, R., Jansakoo, T., Fujimori, S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7897-1796, & Vishwanathan, S.S. (2026). Potential effects of climate change on global air quality and human health. Atmospheric Environment: X 29 e100430. 10.1016/j.aeaoa.2026.100430.

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Abstract

Climate change alters air quality and associated health outcomes. Climate-driven meteorological variables such as temperature, precipitation, and relative humidity influence transport, chemical transformation, and removal of air pollutants, particularly fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone (O3). Here, we investigated the impacts of climate change on global PM2.5 and O3 concentrations via one-way coupling of an atmospheric chemical transport model (CTM) with the outputs of a general circulation model. We examined the impact on future air quality under three climate scenarios: SSP1–2.6, SSP2–4.5, and SSP5–8.5 of the Scenario Model Intercomparison Project (ScenarioMIP) for the mid-century (2040–2049) and the end of the century (2090–2099). To isolate the effect of climate change, anthropogenic and natural emissions were fixed at 2015 levels, enabling quantification of meteorologically driven changes in air quality and mortality. Our results show that climate forcing can trigger substantial regional variations in pollutant levels, with the global mean PM2.5 concentration changing by −0.01 μg m−3 to −0.57 μg m−3 and the O3 level from −0.05 ppbv to −1.20 ppbv. In our experimental framework–where primary and precursor emissions as well as chemical boundary conditions are held constant at 2015 levels–surface PM2.5 and O3 concentrations generally decline under future climate conditions due to meteorological shifts. These changes reflect the isolated effects of climate-driven meteorology rather than the combined climate-emission pathways associated with SSP-RCP scenarios. Although mean global pollutant changes appear to be modest, the associated health benefits are not negligible, corresponding to more than 0.2 million deaths avoided from PM2.5 exposure, and 0.08 million deaths from O3 exposure, when aggregated across all scenarios. Our results underscore the importance of considering climate–meteorology interactions when assessing future air quality and its public-health impacts.

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