Due to the warming, many areas will suffer from stagnant air without the ability to remove air pollution from industry and transportation
Air pollution contributes greatly to heart and lung diseases, cancer and stroke. The World Health Organization estimates that approximately 4 million people die each year due to air pollution that originates from human activity.
"Climate change is causing a serious deterioration in air quality in large parts of the world." So reports a team of researchers from the University of California in a study which is published in Nature Climate Change. According to the researchers, by the end of the current century, more than half of the world's population will be exposed to a situation where the air is stagnant (without movement), or as the researchers say, a "frozen atmosphere". (stagnation) The main victims will be in the equatorial and temperate regions.
The team of researchers used climate models to track the times when conditions of "frozen atmosphere" (stagnant air) existed, conditions where the lack of air movement causes the accumulation of tiny particles such as soot, dust or ozone that penetrate the respiratory system. Unlike most studies that refer only to air quality, this study also refers to the climatic conditions that cause situations in which the air is polluted.
There are few studies that examine how the air quality is affected due to "stagnation" in different areas and even fewer of them assess the weight of the human impact. The new study shows the influence of man and the large distribution of air pollution.
The researchers calculated that if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced by the end of the century, approximately 55% of the world's population will be in areas where stagnant air conditions will increase. Large parts of India, Mexico and the Amazon basin will suffer from the stagnation and pollution. It was not found that there would be an effect on the northern regions of the Sahara or Australia. After the freezing and contamination data were received, the team of researchers would curse the exposure of human populations to contamination. It turns out that the main damage will be in India, but also in Mexico and the western United States.
Countries (it's enough to say "countries" since these are the ones that set policy) can mitigate air pollution by reducing the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, as well as soot, nitrogen oxide, volatile organic substances and substances that cause ozone formation.
The study does not take into account changes in the size of human populations and their distribution nor changes in the amounts of pollution emitted into the atmosphere. When you consider the culture, the phenomenon of frozen air and continued pollution, i.e. the results of the pollution that will increase in the populations that will multiply, predictions for much more severe results are obtained.
And I will add (as usual) that the time has come that instead of controlling the environment for the sake of the human population, there will be control of the human population for the sake of the environment!
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The issue is gaining momentum in the world and in Israel. In Boston there is an enterprise called Soofa that places benches that monitor air pollution, in Chicago they do the same with street lamps. In Israel there is an application called BreezoMeter that shows air pollution. I believe that over time we will see more and more attention to this important issue.
Just a correction, in the picture you don't see air pollution, in the picture you see condensing water vapor, air pollution is overwhelmingly almost invisible.