Anthropogenic heat helps reduce PM2.5 pollution and related health burden in China

Large amounts of energy consumption in recent years have not only increased air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, but have also released more anthropogenic heat into the atmosphere. However, the latter was overlooked in previous air quality and pollution-related health impacts studies. Here we use the atmospheric chemistry model coupled the exposure mortality model to investigate the effects of increased anthropogenic heat flux on PM_2.5 pollution and related health burden in China. We find the ignoring anthropogenic heat leads nighttime PM_2.5 concentrations to be overestimated, especially in metropolitan areas. The rising anthropogenic heat flux between 2000-2016 decreases surface PM_2.5 by 4 ug·m^-3 in Chinese urban region through altering microphysical processes and enhancing vertical mixing. Furthermore, the anthropogenic heat changes could avoid additional 15% (47 thousand) premature deaths, compare to anthropogenic emission reductions. Our findings indicate that anthropogenic heat should be included in air quality modeling and reveal the health benefit of energy use from a microphysical standpoint.