SCAC annual meeting
stresses the urge for continued research

SCAC is coming closer to the end of phase 2, which is in the spring of 2020.
This was in focus at the annual meeting in September 2019, where the project participants gathered to discuss both the last tasks and the needs for coming research on air and climate.

The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency was hosting the annual meeting which was held in their fairly new office in the district of Hammarby in Stockholm.

Representatives of the four work packages reported on the research done so far and what direction they plan the rest of the program period.

Air pollution is a complex field of knowledge

HC Hansson from Stockholm University (in the picture above) presented his conclusions on the overall results in SCAC. According to them air pollution has effects in many fields:

• Health – by the impact of particles (PM2.5), ozone and black carbon
• Climate – as it is both cooling (from sulphur dioxide converted to aerosols) and warming (from e.g. black carbon)
• Ecosystems – via effects from nitrogen deposition and ozone in combination with effects of climate change

- Our results indicate that we are changing the heating systems of the earth. In our research we use a number of different indicators, which can make the results complicated. We have to make them possible to understand, HC Hansson stressed.

Strong need for continued research

As SCAC 2 will end in the spring of 2020, the motivation and requirements for future research were discussed.

A lot of research in the SCAC area can be linked to UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. One idea is further studies of the medical effects from air pollution and noise, using the medical study Scapis where 30,000 Swedes are included.

- If SCAC is to be useful to policy makers to meet major societal needs, we have to reach results which can be used in relation to politically decided societal goals and existing environmental quality standards, said John Munthe, program manager of SCAC.

Finally, the annual meeting set the date for the final conference of SCAC: it will be held in Stockholm May 19, 2020.