Air pollution has been recognized as a threat to human health since the time of Hippocrates, ca 400 BC. Successive written accounts of air pollution occur in different countries through the following two millennia until measurements, from the eighteenth century onwards, show the growing scale of poor air quality in urban centres and close to industry, and the chemical characteristics of the gases and particulate matter. The industrial revolution accelerated both the magnitude of emissions of the primary pollutants and the geographical spread of contributing countries as highly polluted cities became the defining issue, culminating with the great smog of London in 1952. Europe and North America dominated emissions and suffered the majority of adverse effects until the latter decades of the twentieth century, by which time the transboundary issues of acid rain, forest decline and ground-level ozone became the main environmental and political air quality issues. As controls on emissions of sulfur and nitrogen oxides (SO2 and NOx) began to take effect in Europe and North America, emissions in East and South Asia grew strongly and dominated global emissions by the early years of the twenty-first century. The effects of air quality on human health had also returned to the top of the priorities by 2000 as new epidemiological evidence emerged. By this time, extensive networks of surface measurements and satellite remote sensing provided global measurements of both primary and secondary pollutants. Global emissions of SO2 and NOx peaked, respectively, in ca 1990 and 2018 and have since declined to 2020 as a result of widespread emission controls. By contrast, with a lack of actions to abate ammonia, global emissions have continued to grow. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Air quality, past present and future’.

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全球空气质量年表

自公元前 400 年希波克拉底时代以来，空气污染已被公认为对人类健康的威胁。在接下来的两千年中，不同国家连续出现了空气污染的书面记录，直到从 18 世纪开始的测量显示，城市中心和工业附近空气质量差的规模越来越大，以及气体和颗粒物的化学特征. 工业革命加速了主要污染物的排放量和排放国的地理分布，因为高污染城市成为决定性问题，最终导致 1952 年伦敦的大雾霾。欧洲和北美在排放量中占主导地位，并遭受了大部分的污染。直到二十世纪后几十年的不利影响，到那时，酸雨、森林退化和地面臭氧等跨界问题成为主要的环境和政治空气质量问题。随着对硫和氮氧化物（SO2 和 NOx）排放的控制开始在欧洲和北美生效，东亚和南亚的排放量增长强劲，并在 21 世纪初主导了全球排放量。到 2000 年，随着新的流行病学证据的出现，空气质量对人类健康的影响也重新成为首要任务。到那时，广泛的地表测量网络和卫星遥感提供了对初级和次级污染物的全球测量。SO2 和 NOx 的全球排放量分别在 1990 年和 2018 年达到峰值，此后由于广泛的排放控制而下降到 2020 年。相比之下，由于缺乏减少氨的行动，全球排放量继续增长。这篇文章是讨论会议问题“空气质量，过去现在和未来”的一部分。