Questions tagged [air-pollution]
Air pollution is the introduction of particulates, biological molecules, or other harmful materials into Earth's atmosphere, causing diseases, allergies, death to humans, damage to other living organisms such as animals and food crops, or the natural or built environment.
99
questions
3
votes
0
answers
39
views
How can combusted methane from landfill samples be quantified? [closed]
Background:
For my studies I'm wanting and attempting to make a landfill greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) model that predicts the amount of greenhouse gas equivalent emissions ($GHG_{eq}$ [tonnes/year]) ...
- 131
2
votes
1
answer
65
views
Why does a temperature inversion act like a lid?
I do not understand why the fact that warm air is above cold air causes a lid like effect and traps pollutants below? What is it about that order? Why does warm air below cold air not restrict any ...
- 121
4
votes
2
answers
104
views
Estimating meteorological visibility from air chemical and particulate composition
I have found here an answer that provides formula that only takes into account vapors, pressure and temperature - What is the formula used for atmospheric visibility?
Is there an approach that also ...
- 49
5
votes
1
answer
58
views
Clarification of dry deposition of particles
I found a formula for the dry deposition speed of particles and an electric circuit analogy to go with it. I would like some clarification on this figure:
I'm mostly interested in the top right ...
- 305
2
votes
0
answers
42
views
gridded air pollution data for Japan
Do you know of any database where I can get past air pollution (sulfur oxides (SOx) - nitrogen oxides (NOx) - photochemical oxidants (Ox) - particulate matter (PM) - suspended particulate matter (SPM) ...
4
votes
1
answer
35
views
How does the WHO calculate the interaction of mortality effects from indoor and outdoor air pollution?
The WHO's landing page on air pollution includes three different estimates of deaths due to air pollution:
7 million total
4.2 million due to outdoor (ambient) air pollution
3.8 due to household (...
- 1,360
4
votes
2
answers
735
views
But what exactly is "black carbon" in the context of snow-melting particulates reaching Antarctica?
CNN's What is black carbon? The latest way humans are causing changes in Antarctica doesn't actually say anything about what black carbon is. Neither does The Guardian's Black carbon pollution from ...
- 6,942
1
vote
0
answers
38
views
Emission factor for Arsenic [closed]
What emission factor for natural gas boiler should be used for arsenic other than AP-42?
I need to to calculate emissions from natural gas boiler. What emission factor for arsenic would be the best to ...
3
votes
1
answer
126
views
What is the cause for large circular areas of air pollution?
Looking at the layer "Air Quality" on my iOS weather app there seem to be large circular areas of air pollution outside of large cities.
What could be the cause for such phenomena?
UPDATE
I ...
- 81
2
votes
1
answer
86
views
Folium/Leaflet tiles for air pollution modelling
I am using land use regression with machine learning to create an air pollution model. However, almost all tiles I can find using Python and Folium contain text, which my intuition says cannot ...
- 203
6
votes
1
answer
113
views
Would home heat pumps provide large benefits against climate change?
Some facts I have learnt
The Global Warming Potential (GWP) was developed to allow comparisons of the global warming impacts of different gases. Specifically, it is a measure of how much energy the ...
- 335
6
votes
2
answers
125
views
What meteorological data is needed for air quality machine learning models?
Are there any studies that discuss what meteorological data I should look at if I am creating an air quality model with machine learning? That is, what should I extract from NCEI or ERA5 first if I ...
- 203
0
votes
0
answers
61
views
convert mol/m2 to μg/m3 [duplicate]
Sentinel-5P satellite provides high-resolution data products on concentration levels for several atmospheric trace gases (NO2, SO2, O3, and others), which are measured in mol/m2 within the total or ...
4
votes
1
answer
87
views
What meteorological features accompany/cause a thermal inversion?
I am physics grad student working on a problem of making a statistical (neural network) prediction of the air pollution in a city. I am provided with hourly values for ca. a dozen meteo features of ...
- 163
0
votes
1
answer
54
views
Could the phrase 'human made environmental disaster' be applied to illegal and deadly city wide pollution?
The city in which I live has a number of roads that are regularly above the legally allowed yearly average level of nitrogen dioxide permitted (40ug/m3). One road is almost double that limit (77ug/m3)...
- 131
5
votes
2
answers
621
views
How is the concentration of particulate matter calculated per cubic meter
I have some data about PM10, PM2.5, i.e, how much is generated per day (in kilotonnes) by some sector, say from vehicular emissions. It can be converted to micrograms but I don't know how standard ...
- 155
6
votes
0
answers
61
views
What is the appropriate name for air pollutant chemical formula like notation?
Consider air pollutants like carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide for which we use their chemical formulas, $\ce{CO}$ and $\ce{NO2}$ respectively, as a way to compactly refer to them when writing ...
- 61
1
vote
0
answers
29
views
What pollutants can be next to a wood processing plant with formaldehyde factory?
I used to live in an are with a large factory that processes timber then uses the splinters to create OSB and other wood composites. They also have a formaldehyde factory for producing their own ...
- 153
5
votes
3
answers
64
views
Why does air pollution comes with cold weather in tropical areas?
I reside in Bangkok where the local press have reported several times these two last months November-December about high levels of smog. A similar phenomenon occurred last year in this period (end of ...
3
votes
1
answer
95
views
How to generate inputs for the MUNICH model from the VEIN model
MUNICH is the Model of Urban Network of Intersecting Canyons and Highways (MUNICH) (Kim et al., 2018) and VEIN is the Vehicular Emissions INventory model (Ibarra-Espinosa et al, 2018), an R package.
...
- 412
0
votes
1
answer
27
views
Is there a conventional list of pollutants to consider for calculations? Or an updating one even?
In researching economic damage from various pollutants, I often find that it's very random sources that inform me of various pollutants I need to be mindful of in calculations. Is there any kind of ...
- 1
3
votes
1
answer
118
views
Urgent, Please help, where can I find worldwide standards of manganese mining?
Hi everybody who sees this post, I need urgent help for finding all official world wide standarts of the manganese mining.
Problem is that, many houses has been damaged in my village with manganese ...
- 133
1
vote
1
answer
42
views
How can I specifiy a substance in AERMOD?
Since I use OTHER as a pollutant ID, are there some parameters I could specify in order to get better results for dispersion of substance I am trying to model? eg. molecular weight or density?
- 11
3
votes
0
answers
257
views
Is pollution the reason why rainbows are so rare nowadays?
Today I saw a rainbow after almost a decade. I live in Noida (a city) in India. Most people I know believe that: we don't see rainbows nowadays because of pollution and now after nearly 3 months since ...
- 131
1
vote
1
answer
57
views
Independent sources of information on radiation pollution in Europe
Bear with me if this is a wrong place to ask this question. I aksed this question on Physics at StackExchange and was told it will be more on topic here.
Recent news show a fire has started close to ...
- 113
2
votes
2
answers
144
views
Why is Paris still polluted during the Covid-19 shutdown?
It does not seem that the air pollution level is getting any lower in Paris during the current shutdown due to COVID-19.
Why is that?
There are fewer cars. Are they only a small part of Paris' air ...
- 121
2
votes
1
answer
42
views
The effect of the 2019-2020 bushfires/wildfires in Australia
What was the total damage of the 2019-2020 bushfires/wildfires in Australia?
- 23k
7
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Convert NO2 concentration in Sentinel-5P data from mol/m2 to μg/m3 on the ground level
Sentinel-5P satellite provides high-resolution data products on concentration levels for several atmospheric trace gases (NO2, SO2, O3
, and others), which are measured in mol/m2 within the total or ...
- 173
24
votes
1
answer
4k
views
What's causing this high SO2 concentrations in Kazakhstan?
I was using this website for weather conditions around the world called Ventusky (https://www.ventusky.com/) and one of its features allows you to view SO2 concentration. I stumbled upon this high ...
- 351
4
votes
3
answers
118
views
Are atmospheric halogen oxides "supposed to be" in the atmosphere? Where do they come from?
I like to naively think of Earth's natural atmosphere as nitrogen, oxygen, argon, water, carbon dioxide and okay, some nitrogen and sulfur oxides, and again okay, a little hydrogen and methane from ...
- 6,942
1
vote
0
answers
56
views
District/province wise air quality data for South Asia (2010 onward)
I would like to create a district/province-level air quality data for all the countries in South Asia from 2010 onward using satellite data.
As someone with absolutely zero background in remote-...
2
votes
1
answer
109
views
What creates so much pollution in Africa?
Using AirVisual app I notice there is a huge patch of pollution in Africa. I cannot imagine there is a big economic activity to support that huge pollution across almost the whole continent. What ...
- 123
1
vote
0
answers
113
views
What is the reason for this high outdoor VOC level with strange pattern of slow rise and sudden falling?
I have an Atmotube Pro air quality sensor placed outside in a cup with a large bowl placed over the top of it to protect it from the wind and any rain but to allow air to filter through easily.
I'm ...
- 131
1
vote
0
answers
57
views
What's the origin of particulate matter (pm10, pm2 5) [closed]
I would like to ask about origin and inventor of particulate matter pm10, pm2.5.
Who published and defined this formulas and when.
Thanks in advance!
5
votes
1
answer
78
views
How can methylmercury in the ocean be reabsorbed into the atmosphere?
The Sacramento Bee news article Toxic fog may be poisoning some of California’s mountain lions, study says says
Algae in the ocean convert mercury to methylmercury, its most toxic form, which can ...
- 6,942
1
vote
2
answers
216
views
Does Start / Stop technology in cars have an impact on air quality? [closed]
I have repeatedly heard from various car enthusiasts that start stop technology has no benefit (or the tiniest smallest negligble benefit) to air quality so they turn it off entirely. Does it have an ...
- 131
1
vote
1
answer
125
views
Origin of Serious Wildfires
At a very rough estimate, what proportion of wildfires are caused by natural events like lightning? I am absolutely sure that in Europe, where there are often wildfires, the sun is never hot enough to ...
- 4,507
2
votes
1
answer
161
views
Origin of Sulphuric Acid in the Atmosphere
I often see claims that volcanic emissions of sulphur dioxide, on Earth and on the planet Venus, creates sulphuric acid when it combines with water vapour. It doesn't. Sulphur dioxide creates ...
- 4,507
2
votes
1
answer
97
views
Atmospheric conditions needed that blocks all bright light during sunsets and allows you to stare directly at the sun
Today (July 5th, 2019 just before 8 pm KST), along the Han River in Seoul, the surface of the sun could be viewed with my naked eye (no protection needed), and this was safe on the eyes. It appeared ...
1
vote
1
answer
211
views
What is the Carbon Footprint of not changing car oil?
I am on my second vehicle that I have stopped changing my oil after the car has been broke in or around 90k. The first car I made it 400k miles before the rear end went out. The second car I'm at 130k ...
- 1
6
votes
1
answer
149
views
Are these plane trails seen from satellite
Here are photos from West of Normandy, at 7-9am after sunrise on the 14th of may, from the visible satellite. It's a bit strange that they are visible from space, they are 2-3 miles wide? Are they jet ...
- 1,311
2
votes
1
answer
348
views
What is a Micro-Aethalometer; how do portable Black Carbon (BC) Monitors work?
The screenshot below is from MIT's Erik Velasco's presentation Particle exposure and dosage on public transport. My question is about the small, portable Black Carbon (BC) monitor.
From my reading, ...
- 6,942
4
votes
1
answer
557
views
Which particles are classified as PM2.5? How exactly is this defined?
Question
When discussing "PM2.5", is there any standardized understanding of which particles are or are not included?
Is it everything that's 2.5 microns and smaller? Or Everything between 2....
- 6,942
4
votes
1
answer
296
views
How can agricultural ammonia lead to PM2.5 production in the atmosphere?
The NPR News article Growing Corn Is A Major Contributor To Air Pollution, Study Finds talks about all sources of pollution associated with growing corn, and it singles out the application of ammonia ...
- 6,942
6
votes
2
answers
148
views
Is pollution a contributing factor to freezing rain?
I have been to different places with nearly the same freezing temperatures, around -2°C, but only at some specific places I repetitively experienced freezing rain. One common factor at these places ...
- 161
5
votes
4
answers
254
views
What are the technical solutions to measure $\ce{CO2}$ emissions?
I'm currently at COP24 (United Nations Climate Change Conference) in Katowice, Poland.
(some editing since I took a screenshot of my laptop)
I've asked some guys about $\ce{CO2}$ emissions but very ...
- 188
1
vote
0
answers
48
views
To what extent does lightning produced NOx end up in the atmopsheric boundary layer?
Lightning produced NO$_{x}$ (emitted as NO but quickly converted to NO$_{2}$) can be one of the major sources of atmospheric NO$_{x}$ in the tropics [1]. Estimates of emissions per flash range from 10 ...
- 350
5
votes
0
answers
80
views
What are the benefits of direct sun viewing spectrometer over a backscatter measuring spectrometer to quantify trace gases in the atmosphere?
I am using a Pandora spectrometer and a MAX-DOAS spectrometer to quantify the amount of formaldehyde (HCHO) present in the troposphere and stratosphere in Fairbanks, Alaska. Both the spectrometers use ...
- 115
3
votes
0
answers
58
views
The difficulties for the simulation of atmospheric metals
Atmospheric metals usually reside in aerosols with complex source origins. The concentrations distribution of metals especially for those with high toxicity (Pb, Cd, Ni, V) should be informative for ...
- 2,449
5
votes
2
answers
655
views
How to map emission inventory from lat&lon corrdinate to WRF model grid
Here, I have a regional emission inventory, which mainly contains the varibales of lat,lon,...
- 81