In this study, we have developed a unique global black carbon (BC) emission inventory using a 10-km grid based on the latest source and emission factor information. The inventory is used to model BC concentrations using a global atmospheric aerosol climate model, with a high-resolution grid for Asia, to better resolve the exposure of populations to elevated BC concentration. The model with even higher resolution (10 km) is used for the North China Plain. Finally, the population exposure concentrations are evaluated.

Abstract

Black carbon (BC) is increasingly recognized as a significant air pollutant with harmful effects on human health, either in its own right or as a carrier of other chemicals. The adverse impact is of particular concern in those developing regions with high emissions and a growing population density. The results of recent studies indicate that BC emissions could be underestimated by a factor of 2–3 and this is particularly true for the hot-spot Asian region. Here we present a unique inventory at 10-km resolution based on a recently published global fuel consumption data product and updated emission factor measurements. The unique inventory is coupled to an Asia-nested (∼50 km) atmospheric model and used to calculate the global population exposure to BC with fully quantified uncertainty. Evaluating the modeled surface BC concentrations against observations reveals great improvement. The bias is reduced from −88% to −35% in Asia when the unique inventory and higher-resolution model replace a previous inventory combined with a coarse-resolution model. The bias can be further reduced to −12% by downscaling to 10 km using emission as a proxy. Our estimated global population-weighted BC exposure concentration constrained by observations is 2.14 μg⋅m−3; 130% higher than that obtained using less detailed inventories and low-resolution models.