Ozone Cartoon from Austrialia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzY
HwzSE1VY
Biggest issue in climate studies
Alleged CRU Emails - Searchable
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/ind
ex.php
Air
Pollution
London fog in the
time of Dickens
Urban Pollution Bubble
Factors that increase urban air pollution:
High concentration of sources: vehicles, factories, homes.
Lower wind speeds due to greater surface roughness.
Basin drainage (many cities located in valleys).
Temperature inversions common from heat island effect.
Temperature Inversions
A temperature inversion is an increase in temperature with height.
More likely over cities and in drainage basins.
Lower wind speeds allow radiational cooling of upper layer.
Air is stagnant.
Can trap pollutants below.
Allows time for chemical transformations to occur (Smog)
Can cause severe health problems due to time of exposure.
1963 photo of a
massive smog
episode in New
York City.
(AP/Wide World
Photo, EPA
Journal Jan/Feb
1990.)
Industrial pollution around the Siberian city of Troitsk (54.0N, 61.0E, the smallest of a
group of three heavy industrial cities east of the Urals, the others being
Magnitogorsk and Chelyabinsk. All have been cited as being some of the worst
industrial polluted cities in Russia, indeed, in the world! Troitsk has the largest area
of soot-blackened snow. Respiratory diseases among the citizens are chronic.
(Photo: NASA.)
Smog over the Yangtze River Valley in China, photographed
by the Space Shuttle Columbia. (Photo: NASA.)
Formation of Photochemical Smog
PAN = peroxyacyl nitrates
Smog over Los Angeles
LA Smog
The Most Polluted Cities
UNEP -- PM10 levels
Top Ten US Cities for Air Pollution
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Los Angeles, CA
Bakersfield, CA
Fresno, CA
Visalia-Porterville, CA
Merced, CA
Houston, TX
Sacramento, CA
Dallas/Fort Worth, TX
New York, NY
Philadelphia, PA
Populations sensitive to air pollution
Individuals with asthma and other
respiratory diseases
Individuals with cardiovascular
disease
The elderly
Children
Smokers
Criteria Pollutants
･
･
･
･
･
･
Carbon Monoxide (CO)
Ground-level Ozone (O3)
Lead (Pb)
Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2)
Particulate Matter (PM)
Sulfur Dioxide (SO2)
Hopeful Trends
Trends in German emissions
(heavy metals)
http://www.epa.gov
•Clean air and air pollution have been public issues for centuries. In
1306 King Edward I of England issued a proclamation banning the
use of sea coal in London due to the smoke it caused. Over the next
few centuries, additional efforts were made in Great Britain to reduce
the amount of smoke in the air. The first attempt to control air
pollution in the United States occurred during the industrial
revolution. The cities of Chicago and Cincinnati enacted clean air
legislation in 1881. Subsequently, other cities, towns, and regions
slowly began enforcing their own clean air policies. At the beginning
of this century, the Bureau of Mines, under the Department of the
Interior, created an Office of Air Pollution to control smoke
emissions, but the office was soon eliminated due to inactivity.
During the late 1940s serious smog incidents in Los Angeles and
Donora, Pennsylvania raised public awareness and concern about
this issue once again. In 1955, the government decided that this
problem needed to be dealt with on a national level. The Air Pollution
Control Act of 1955, was the first in a series of clean air and air
quality control acts which are still in effect and continue to be revised
and amended.
Morbidity Pyramid
Regional Air Pollution
Regional Pollution forms in one location but influences another
region. It crosses political boundaries, usually from large
population centers to less populated areas.
Air pollution from Bos-Wash causes ozone alerts in Maine.
Acid from rust belt power plants damages lakes in New England.
Toxins from Louisiana’s “cancer alley” blow downwind.
Acid from England damages lakes in Scandanavia.
Air pollution from Europe creates the Brown Cloud in India.
Pollution from China causes alerts in Korea and Japan.
Plume and Wind Direction
Acid Deposition
Acid Deposition is a combination of moist and dry processes.
Acid precipitation from rain, snow, fog is ~50% of the total.
Spring snow melt can cause an acidic pulse in rivers. Trees
on mountainsides can be bathed in acidic fog.
Dry deposition of acidic particles is ~50% of the total. Windblown particles settle on buildings, cars, and trees and
fields. They can cause damage directly or be washed off by
rain and become acid runoff.
Major sources are burning of high sulfur coal which produces
sulfur dioxide (SO2) and high temperature combustion in
auto engines which produces nitrogen oxides (NOx). On
surfaces such as clouds (moist) and particles (dry) sulfur
dioxide and nitrogen oxides react with water, oxygen, and
oxidants forming a mild solution of sulfuric acid and nitric
acid. Sunlight increases the rate of most of these reactions.
The acidity of a solution, or its hydrogen ion concentration, increases
exponentially as the pH decreases. pH = - log [H+]
Acid rain can be 10 to 105 times more acidic than “pure” rain.
Natural rainwater is slightly acidic -- Why?
Acids in the Environment
Sulfuric: 2 SO2 + O2 + 2H2O --> 2 H2SO4
Nitric: NO + NO2 + O2 + H2O --> 2 HNO3
Hydrochloric: H2SO4 + 2 NaCl --> 2 HCl + Na2SO4
Carbonic: CO2 + H2O --> H2CO3
70% of the Sulfur emissions and 88% of the NOx emissions
are from human sources. The biosphere, marine sources,
and volcanoes provide the rest.
The Formation of Acid Rain
The Consequences of Acid Rain
Web sites
Clean Air Act History
http://www.ametsoc.org/AMS/sloan/cleanair/index.html
The Chemistry of Atmospheric Pollutants
http://www.aeat.co.uk/netcen/airqual/kinetics/