Study on Global Health Risk from Ozone Air Pollution Based on JSC’s TOAR Database

A new publication in the journal Environmental Science & Technology (DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.0c07742) led by the University of North Carolina, USA, developed a novel data fusion approach to combine the global observations from the Tropospheric Ozone Assessment Report database hosted by JSC with output from several numerical chemistry-transport models. The new method allows for the production of annual high-resolution maps of ground-level ozone burden, which can be combined with population density to assess the regional health risk from ozone air pollution. The findings from this study were used by the Global Burden of Disease 2019 (GBD2019) study, which estimated that about 365,000 people around the world died in 2019 from exposure to ozone pollution. The research, published online on 8 March, used the largest compilation of ozone observations ever produced as well as estimates from nine global atmospheric models. By carrying out a data fusion, the research team was able to combine these different sources of information, making use of the advantages of each.

Contact: Dr. Martin Schultz, m.schultz@fz-juelich.de