April 6, 2016
EPA Provides $8.5 Million to Protect Air Quality in a Changing
Climate
WASHINGTON Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) announced $8.5 million in research funding to 12
universities to protect air quality from the current and future
challenges associated with the impacts of climate change.
The research funded by these grants will improve our understanding of
how climate change is impacting our air and our health, said Thomas A.
Burke, EPA science advisor and deputy assistant administrator of EPAs
Office of Research and Development. By examining the relationship
between air quality and climate change this research will help better
protect human health and the environment.
Research has shown that climate change can affect air quality and impact
public health. With the funding, researchers will expand investigations
to understand:
Health
impacts from smoke due to a rise in wildfires that are increasing as a
result of climate change;
Atmospheric changes in air pollution chemistry that are occurring due to
climate change;
Potential consequences of increased levels of dust from particle
pollution on human health and visibility;
Drought
and land-use changes in the western U.S. that may impact the incidence
of dust storms; and
Impacts
to air quality from increased nitrogen-based fertilizer use.
The grants, funded through the agencys Science to Achieve Results
(STAR) program, are being awarded to the following institutions:
University of California, Davis, Davis, Calif. for Optimal Energy
Portfolios to Sustain Economic Advantage, Achieve GHG Targets and
Minimize PM2.5.
University of California, Irvine, Irvine, Calif. for Effects of Ammonia
on Secondary Organic Aerosol Formation in a Changing Climate.
University of Colorado, Boulder, Boulder, Colo. for Rethinking the
Formation of Secondary Organic Aerosols (SOA) under Changing Climate by
Incorporating Mechanistic and Field Constraints.
Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colo. for Planning for an
Unknown Future: Incorporating Meteorological Uncertainty into
Predictions of the Impact of Fires and Dust on Particulate Matter.
Columbia University, New York, N.Y. for Quantifying Risks from Changing
U.S. PM2.5 Distributions Due to Climate Variability and Warming with
Large Multi-model Ensembles and High-Resolution Downscaling.
Emory
University, Atlanta, Ga. for Wildfires in the Rocky Mountains Region:
Current and Future Impacts on PM2.5, Health and Policy.
Georgia
Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Ga. for Integrated Analysis of Land
Use Based Policies for Improving Air and Water Quality: A Focus on
Agricultural Reactive Nitrogen and Wildland Fire Emissions as Climate,
Land Use and Anthropogenic Emissions Change.
Georgia
Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Ga. for The Effect of Ammonia on
Organic Aerosols in a Changing Climate.
Harvard
University, Cambridge, Mass. for Effects of Changes in Climate and Land
Use on U.S. Dust and Wildfire Particulate Matter.
University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, Md. for Particulate
Matter Prediction and Source Attribution for U.S. Air Quality Management
in a Changing World.
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, N.M. for Evaluating the Timeline
of Particulate Matter Exposure from Urban Transportation and Land-Use
Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Strategies Using a Novel Modeling Framework.
Washington State University, Pullman, Wash. for Ensemble Analysis of
Global Change Projections for U.S. Air Quality Using a Novel Combination
of Lagrangian and Gridded Air Quality Models.
University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyo. for Interplay Between Black and
Brown Carbon from Biomass Burning and Climate.
To learn more about these awards, visit:
https://cfpub.epa.gov/ncer_abstracts/index.cfm/fuseaction/recipients.display/rfa_id/594/records_per_page/ALL
To learn more about EPAs air research, visit:
http://www2.epa.gov/air-research
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