The Cyprus Institute

About: The Cyprus Institute is a other organization based out in Nicosia, Cyprus. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Aerosol & Environmental science. The organization has 418 authors who have published 1252 publications receiving 32586 citations.

The Impact of Fine Particulate Outdoor Air Pollution to Premature Mortality

Abstract: Epidemiological cohort studies have shown that the long-term exposure to PM2.5 is associated with increased mortality from cardiorespiratory diseases and lung cancer. We use an atmospheric chemistry-general circulation model in combination with population data, country-level health statistics and pollution exposure response functions to investigate the link between premature mortality and several emission source categories, combining all aerosol types that contribute to PM2.5. We estimate the global premature mortality by PM2.5 at 3.15 million/year in 2010. We find that high emissions levels mainly from residential energy use have the largest impact on premature mortality in Eastern and Southeastern Asia (almost 70 % of the global), with China and India being the counties with higher mortality levels attributable. For Europe we estimate 375 thousand premature deaths (about 11 % of the global rate), and 274 thousand deaths for the Eastern Mediterranean region in 2010. In this work we assume that all particles are equally toxic.

A comparison of gridded datasets of precipitation and temperature over the Eastern Nile Basin region

Abstract: Three gridded datasets of precipitation and surface air temperature over the Eastern Nile Basin (ENB) were compared and evaluated for further use in studies of the basin, such as for the optimization and validation of regional climate models for the basin and for hydrologic studies of the ENB. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), Climate Research Unit (CRU), and Global Precipitation Climatology Center (GPCC) gridded datasets for precipitation were assessed and compared to available ground-based observations of the precipitation in the Ethiopian Highlands, which receive most of the precipitation that falls in the basin. Pearson’s correlation coefficient (COR), the modified index of agreement (MIA), and the mean absolute error (MAE) were used in statistical analyses of the gridded datasets. TRMM and GPCC were found to agree well with each other and with the GHCN station data, although GPCC showed the closest agreement with the ground-based observations. This advantage of GPCC was clearly apparent in the calculated statistical metrics, where GPCC gave the best performance (the highest COR and MIA and the lowest MAE) among the three datasets when they were compared with the ground-based observations. CRU indicated drier conditions than the other two datasets, especially over the highlands, while it also yielded the poorest agreement with ground-based observations. Temperature datasets for the ENB from the University of Delaware (UDel) and CRU were also evaluated. Both datasets performed well, and the bias between them was small. When compared to ground-based observations, both showed high COR and MIA and low MAE for most stations, but UDel presented slightly better calculated statistical metrics than CRU. Based on these results, we recommend the use of GPCC when modeling the precipitation and UDel when modeling the air temperature over the ENB.