Journal of Environment and Earth Science www.iiste.org ISSN 2224-3216 (Paper) ISSN 2225-0948 (Online) Vol.5, No.16, 2015 1 Effect of Climate Change Pollutants on the Corrosion Rate of Steel in Rural, Urban and Industrial Environments Ben Uchechukwu Ngene 1* , Anthony Nkem Ede 1 , Prashant Kumar 2 Boulent Imam 2 1 Department of Civil Engineering, Covenant University, Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria 2 Department of Civil/Structural Engineering, University of Surrey, Guildford, United Kingdom. Abstract Ever since industrial revolution, the world climatic conditions have been deteriorating due to the ever increasing amount of air pollutants injected into the atmosphere. This has adversely affected the health of living organism, plants and the environment that host them. Building structures are not left out in the devastating effects of air pollution as metallic components are easily oxidized leading to corrosion. Corrosion of steel materials due to environmental pollutants has become an issue of great concern to researchers all over the world. This paper looked at the effect of climate pollutants in the air as they affect weathering steel in rural, urban and industrial environment. The corrosion process in steel over time and how it varies in rural, urban and industrial environments were considered. The overall objective of this work is to underscore the factors that have impact on the progressive deterioration of materials exposed to atmospheric weathering. The climate and air pollution parameters that affect material losses are identified and their numeric values obtained vie dose response functions. The results obtained show that  ଶ corrosion rate of industrial environment is about five times that of rural environment while that of industrial to urban and urban to rural corrosion rates are slightly above two times for each. Keywords: Climate Change, Building Materials, Air Pollution, Corrosion Rate and Global Warming 1. INTRODUCTION According to Duke (2011), the cliffs and beaches of Britain are shrinking, disappearing into the surrounding sea because of coastal flooding, erosion and land slide arising from climate change. Other nations of the world are experiencing it in diverse manners. For instance, Nigeria is no exception to these observations as all the factors have been verified both in the coastal areas and the hinterland. Researches by Ede and Oshiga (2014) and Ede et al. (2015) have all proved reduced number of rainy days and increased intensity of rainfalls in Lagos, Nigeria and that the negative impacts on buildings collapse and infrastructure decay are evident. The main form of damage by air pollution to building and building materials include discoloration, failure of paintings, loss of essential details in artworks and structural failures according to Feenstra (1984). Determining the effect of such loss from building materials and predicting the likely corrosion loss of ferrous materials due to the influence of atmospheric corrosion are still in infant stage, Ngene (2012) and ExternE (1998). The overall objective of this work is to underscore the factors that have impact on the service life and deterioration of materials exposed to atmospheric weathering in various environments. Understanding how air quality affects the corrosion of materials of construction is of essence, however, valuation of material damage is usually difficult. It is therefore important that the climate and air pollution parameters that affect material losses are identified and their numeric values used for a known location to determine how they affect various environments. 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Climate Change Predictions and Air Pollutants Climate change data from IPCC’s Synthesis Report (2007) refers to observable change through statistical analysis of means and other variable properties over a period of time usually above a decade. This change in climate with time may be due to natural causes or it may be due to human activity. Warming of the climate system is observed to have been responsible for the increase in global average temperature, melting of ice and rise in global average sea level. As observed by Houghton (2004), various human activities in the industry, in the field, in form of deforestation, in transportation or at home are resulting in emissions of gaseous pollutants of increasing amounts. Carbon dioxide is observed as a good absorber of radiated heat coming from the earth’s surface and the increases quantity of carbon dioxide acts like a shield covering over the earth surface, thereby causing the earth to warm more than it would normally be. According to Hulme et al (2002) in Brimblecombe et al (2008), “London climate will change over the current century. From the model analysis using the HadCM3, temperature is expected to rise by by 2080 under the A2 Emission Scenario and precipitation will increase in winter and decrease in the summer”. London air pollution was observed to have increased from the industrial revolution period (1700 -1970). Temperature projection is one of the widely used parameter in the determination of global climate change. Houghton (2004)