Climate change and pollutant emissions impacts on air quality in 2050 over Portugal

Changes in climate and air pollutant emissions will affect future air quality from global to urban scale. In this study, regional air quality simulations for historical and future periods are conducted, with CAMx version 6.0, to investigate the impacts of future climate and anthropogenic emission projections on air quality over Portugal and the Porto metropolitan area in 2050. The climate and the emission projections were derived from the Representative Concentrations Pathways (RCP8.5) scenario. Modelling results show that climate change will impact NO2, PM10 and O3 concentrations over Portugal. The NO2 and PM10 annual means will increase in Portugal and in the Porto municipality, and the maximum 8-hr daily O3 value will increase in the Porto suburban areas (approximately 5%) and decrease in the urban area (approximately 2%). When considering climate change and projected anthropogenic emissions, the NO2 annual mean decreases (approximately 50%); PM10 annual mean will increase in Portugal and decrease in Porto municipality (approximately 13%); however PM10 and O3 levels increase and extremes occur more often, surpassing the currently legislated annual limits and displaying a higher frequency of daily exceedances. This air quality degradation is likely to be related with the trends found for the 2046-2065 climate, which implies warmer and dryer conditions, and with the increase of background concentrations of ozone and particulate matter. The results demonstrate the need for Portuguese authorities and policy-makers to design and implement air quality management strategies that take climate change impacts into account.