Changes in ozone and PM2.5 in Europe during the period of 1990–2030: Role of reductions in land and ship emissions

Abstract Air pollution is among the top threats to human health and ecosystems despite the substantial decrease in anthropogenic emissions. Meanwhile, the role of ship emissions on air quality is becoming increasingly important with the growing maritime transport and less strict regulations. In this study, we modeled the air quality in Europe between 1990 and 2030 with ten-year intervals, using the regional air quality model CAMx version 6.5, to investigate the changes in the past (1990–2010) as well as the effects of different land and ship emission scenarios in the future (2020,2030). The modeled mean ozone levels decreased slightly during the first decade but then started increasing again especially in polluted areas. Results from the future scenarios suggest that by 2030 the peak ozone would decrease, leading to a decrease in the days exceeding the maximum daily 8-h average ozone (MDA8) limit values (60 ppb) by 51% in southern Europe relative to 1990. The model results show a decrease of 56% (6.3 μg m−3) in PM2.5 concentrations from 1990 to 2030 under current legislation, mostly due to a large drop in sulfate (representing up to 44% of the total PM2.5 decrease during 1990–2000) while nitrate concentrations were predicted to go down with an increasing rate (10% of total PM2.5 decrease during 1990–2000 while 36% during 2020–2030). The ship emissions if reduced according to the maximum technically feasible reduction (MTFR) scenario were predicted to contribute up to 19% of the decrease in the PM2.5 concentrations over land between 2010 and 2030. Ship emission reductions according to the MTFR scenario would lead to a decrease in the days with MDA8 exceeding EU limits by 24–28% (10–14 days) around the coastal regions. The results obtained in our study show the increasing importance of ship emission reductions, after a relatively large decrease in land emissions was achieved in Europe.