Regional air pollution and climate change in Europe: An integrated assessment (AIR-CLIM)

The aim of the AIR-CLIM project is to perform an integrated analysis of the linkages between climate change and regional air pollution in Europe and to produce results that are relevant to European policy-making. Key elements of the analysis are on the impact side the exceedances of critical thresholds for air pollution and global change and on the cost side the estimates of costs to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and air pollutants. The integrated modeling framework set up to meet these objectives consists of two state-of-the-art integrated models covering regional air pollution in Europe (RAINS) and global climate change (IMAGE), supplemented by new components. Based on a preliminary analysis it can be stated that climate change will make European vegetation in most regions less sensitive to acid deposition. Taking into account the emission trends the impacts of regional air pollution will decrease while the impacts of climate change increase. Different problems will be important in different regions: regional air pollution in Central and northern Europe, and climate change in southern Europe.