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Record W4414090318 · doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09482-1

Long-range PM2.5 pollution and health impacts from the 2023 Canadian wildfires

2025· article· en· W4414090318 on OpenAlexaffabout
Qiang Zhang, Yuexuanzi Wang, Qingyang Xiao, Guannan Geng, Steven J. Davis, Xiaodong Liu, Jin Yang, Jiajun Liu, Wenyu Huang, Changpei He, Binhe Luo, Randall V. Martin, Michael Bräuer, James T. Randerson, Kebin He

Bibliographic record

VenueNature · 2025
Typearticle
Languageen
FieldEnvironmental Science
TopicAir Quality and Health Impacts
Canadian institutionsUniversity of British Columbia
Fundersnot available
KeywordsHuman healthAir pollutionPollutionAir quality indexSmokeClimate change

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

Smoke from extreme wildfires in Canada adversely affected air quality in many regions in 20231,2. Here we use satellite observations, machine learning and a chemical transport model to quantify global and regional PM2.5 (particulate matter less than 2.5 μm in diameter) exposure and human health impacts related to the 2023 Canadian wildfires. We find that the fires increased annual PM2.5 exposure worldwide by 0.17 μg m–3 (95% confidence interval, 0.09–0.26 μg m–3). North America had the largest increase in annual mean exposure (1.08 μg m–3; 0.82–1.34 μg m–3), but there were also increases in Europe (0.41 μg m–3; 0.32–0.50 μg m–3) owing to long-range transport. Annual mean PM2.5 exposure in Canada increased by 3.82 μg m–3 (3.00–4.64 μg m–3). In the USA, the contribution of the Canadian fires to increased PM2.5 was 1.49 μg m–3 (1.22–1.77 μg m–3), four times as large as the contribution from the 2023 wildfires originating in the USA. We find that 354 million (277–421 million) people in North America and Europe were exposed to daily PM2.5 air pollution caused by Canadian wildfires in 2023. We estimate that 5,400 (3,400–7,400) acute deaths in North America and 64,300 (37,800–90,900) chronic deaths in North America and Europe were attributable to PM2.5 exposure to the 2023 Canadian wildfires. Our results highlight the far-reaching PM2.5 pollution and health burden that large wildfires can have in a single year. A modelling study based on satellite observations, machine learning and a chemical transport model quantifies the global and regional exposure to particulate-matter pollution and the human health impacts related to the 2023 Canadian wildfires.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame machine prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.000
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.001
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Observational · Consensus signal: Observational
GenreCandidate signal: Empirical · Consensus signal: Empirical
Teacher disagreement score0.018
Threshold uncertainty score0.077

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0000.001
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0010.000
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0000.001
Bibliometrics0.0010.001
Science and technology studies0.0010.000
Scholarly communication0.0010.000
Open science0.0010.001
Research integrity0.0010.001
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0010.000

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.019
GPT teacher head0.318
Teacher spread0.299 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designObservational
Domainnot available
GenreEmpirical

How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".

Quick stats

Citations63
Published2025
Admission routes2
Has abstractyes

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