Upcoming Event at The Nicholas Institute

Linking air pollution, climate change, and human health: management of ozone air pollution by reducing methane emissions

J. Jason West
Assistant Professor, Environmental Sciences & Engineering, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Friday, September 21
1:15 pm
LSRC A158

Drinks and snacks will be provided.

J. Jason West is just starting at UNC Chapel Hill and does research that would be of interest to a number of Nicholas faculty, staff and students.  Jason served as a AAAS Science Policy Fellow for the EPA in 2002-3.  In his spare time, Jason raises money for and installs small-scale solar systems in rural Mexican villages.
If you would like to meet with Jason on Friday Sept. 21, please contact Audrey Perry Fulmer at the Nicholas Institute: audrey.perry@duke.edu

Abstract:
Changes in emissions of any ozone precursor - nitrogen oxides (NO/_x /), non-methane volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide, or methane - affect both ozone air quality and the radiative forcing of climate.  Methane is the dominant anthropogenic organic precursor of ozone in the troposphere, yet mitigation of methane is not generally considered for ozone air quality management.  Using the MOZART-2 global model, a 20% decrease in anthropogenic methane emissions is shown to decrease ozone globally by ~1 ppbv.  This ozone reduction in turn will reduce ~30,000 premature mortalities globally in 2030 and ~370,000 between 2010 and 2030.  The monetized benefits to human health can exceed the costs of this 20% decrease.  Among all precursors, mitigation of methane emissions is shown to cause the greatest decrease in net radiative forcing per unit improvement in surface ozone air quality.  Methane mitigation can therefore be a cost-effective means of international and long-term ozone air quality management, with concurrent benefits for climate.  Finally, I analyze the intercontinental transport of ozone by modeling 10% reductions in NO/_x / emissions in each of nine world regions.  By comparing the changes in ozone within the source region and in each region globally, the most important inter-continental linkages are identified, for both the change in surface ozone concentrations and ozone-related mortalities.

J. Jason West (Duke Engineering, Class of 1993) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he performs interdisciplinary research addressing air pollution and climate change, primarily through the application of models of atmospheric chemistry and transport.  Dr. West recently worked as a Research Scientist at Princeton University, and prior to that, at the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, DC under a fellowship from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  Dr. West has been a visiting scientist at the Mexican National Institute of Ecology (INE), and conducted computer modeling of air pollution in Mexico City as a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  He has a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University, earned jointly between Civil & Environmental Engineering and Engineering & Public Policy, an M.Phil. in Environment & Development from the University of Cambridge, where he studied as a Churchill Scholar, an M.S. from Carnegie Mellon, and a B. S. in Civil & Environmental Engineering from Duke University.