PUBLICATIONS Geophysical Research Letters RESEARCH LETTER The role of natural variability in projections of climate 10.1002/2016GL071565 change impacts on U.S. ozone pollution Key Points: Fernando Garcia-Menendez1,2 , Erwan Monier2 , and Noelle E. Selin2,3,4 • Natural variability can significantly fl in uence model-based projections of 1Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, climate change impacts on air quality 2 • Multidecadal simulations or initial USA, Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, 3 condition ensembles are needed to Massachusetts, USA, Institute for Data, Systems and Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, identify an anthropogenic-forced Massachusetts, USA, 4Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, climate signal in O3 concentrations Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA • It is difficult to attribute the impacts of climate change on O3 to human influence before midcentury or under Abstract Climate change can impact air quality by altering the atmospheric conditions that determine stabilization scenarios pollutant concentrations. Over large regions of the U.S., projected changes in climate are expected to favor formation of ground-level ozone and aggravate associated health effects. However, modeling studies Supporting Information: exploring air quality-climate interactions have often overlooked the role of natural variability, a major source • Supporting Information S1 of uncertainty in projections. Here we use the largest ensemble simulation of climate-induced changes in air Correspondence to: quality generated to date to assess its influence on estimates of climate change impacts on U.S. ozone. F. Garcia-Menendez, We find that natural variability can significantly alter the robustness of projections of the future climate’s
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