Ozone Cartoon from Austrialia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzYHwzSE1VY

Biggest issue in climate studies

Alleged CRU Emails - Searchablehttp://www.eastangliaemails.com/index.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. Los Angeles, CA

2. Bakersfield, CA

3. Fresno, CA

4. Visalia-Porterville, CA

5. Merced, CA

6. Houston, TX

7. Sacramento, CA

8. Dallas/Fort Worth, TX

9. New York, NY

10. 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 DepositionAcid 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. Wind-blown 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/