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Less traffic on the roads during the first COVID-19 lockdown in the UK led to a reduction in air pollution but may have caused potentially damaging surface ozone levels to rise, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of York. The 25–75% range is shown by the shaded area. These results are a cautionary tale.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing new, stronger standards to promote clean air and reduce pollution from heavy-duty vehicles and engines starting in model year (MY) 2027. This proposed rulemaking builds on and improves the existing emission control program for on-highway heavy-duty engines and vehicles.
In early 2013, the Chinese government declared a war on air pollution and began instituting stringent policies to regulate the emissions of PM 2.5. Cities restricted the number of cars on the road, coal-fired power plants reduced emissions or were shuttered and replaced with natural gas. Over the course of five years, PM 2.5
Levels of two major air pollutants have been reduced significantly since lockdowns began in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, but a secondary pollutant—ground-level ozone—has increased in China, according to new research. Maybe this unintended experiment could be used to understand better the emission regulations.
Since the 1980s, air pollution has increased worldwide, but it has increased at a much faster pace in regions close to the equator. They found that the increase in ozone burden due to the spatial distribution change slightly exceeds the combined influences of the increased emission magnitude and global methane.
Drought conditions can have complicated effects on ozone air quality, so to better understand the process, researchers have analyzed data from two ozone-polluted cities before, during and after the California drought. However, plants also decrease air ozone levels by taking the gas up through pores in their leaves.
Data from the ESA’s Tropomi (TROPOspheric Monitoring) instrument on board the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite shows the variation of nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ) emissions over China from December to March. The drop in emissions also coincided with Lunar New Year celebrations, which usually sees a similar drop in emissions each year.
Long-term exposure to ambient ozone appears to accelerate arterial conditions that progress into cardiovascular disease and stroke, according to a new University at Buffalo study. The study found that chronic exposure to ozone was associated with a progression of thickening of the main artery that supplies blood to the head and neck.
A study by a pair of researchers at Northwestern University found that when fuel prices drove residents of São Paulo, Brazil, to switch from ethanol to gasoline in their flexible-fuel vehicles, local ozone levels dropped 20%. Ozone levels are relatively high in São Paulo, with hourly concentrations above 75 and 125 µg m ?3
In China, people breathe ozone-laden air two to six times more often than people in the United States, Europe, Japan, or South Korea, according to a new international study published in Environmental Science & Technology Letters. 2017 for one ozone metric. The inset shows ozone trends in Beijing (red) and Los Angeles (blue).
New research by George Mason University found that exposure to certain air pollutants is linked to increased emergency department (ED) visits for respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. We estimated associations between twelve ambient air pollutants of both primary (e.g. The study is published in the journal Environment International.
Ozone levels across much of North America and Europe dropped significantly between 2000 and 2014. People living in parts of southern Europe, South Korea and southern Japan and China also experienced more than 15 days a year of ozone levels above 70 ppb. Trends in daily maximum ozone levels (known as 4MDA8) at urban and non-urban sites.
Average annual percentage of black carbon pollution related to Chinese exports. China is responsible for only a small percentage of the annual pollution in the US, but powerful global winds known as “westerlies” can push airborne chemicals across the ocean in days, particularly during the spring, causing dangerous spikes in contaminants.
In a statement released this morning, President Barack Obama said he has requested that US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson withdraw the agency’s draft Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) rulemaking. Earlier post.) National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS).
Springtime ozone distributions for 1984, 1995–2008 in the mid-troposphere (3.0–8.0 Springtime ozone levels above western North America are rising primarily due to air flowing eastward from the Pacific Ocean, a trend that is largest when the air originates in Asia. The US EPA recently proposed new tougher ground-level ozone standards.
The European Community’s air pollutantemission inventory report released by the European Environment Agency finds that in 2007, sulphur oxides (SO x ) emissions were down by 72 % from 1990 levels. EU-27 emissions of all four pollutants were lower in 2007 than in 2006.
About 4 million children worldwide develop asthma each year because of inhaling nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ) air pollution, according to an open-access study published in The Lancet Planetary Health by researchers at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health (Milken Institute SPH). —Susan Anenberg.
Ozone, the main component of smog, is a plant-damaging pollutant formed by emissions from vehicles, cooking stoves and other sources. New research shows that ozonepollution damaged millions of tons of wheat, rice, soybean and cotton crops in India in 2005. Smog in India. Credit: Mark Danielson/Flickr.
Large improvements of air quality in China during the lockdown have been widely reported, but new research shows that two pollutants harmful to human health—fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) and ozone—were only slightly reduced. and ozone were only slightly reduced or barely affected.
A study by researchers at the University of Texas found that in general, use of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) can lead to an increase in ozone during nighttime hours (due to decreased scavenging from both vehicles and EGU stacks) and a decrease in ozone during daytime hours. The results are less clear in Dallas and Houston.
US Congressman Scott Peters (CA-52) introduced the Super PollutantEmissions Reduction Act (SUPER Act) of 2013, legislation aimed at combating short-lived climate pollutants, which are only somewhat addressed by disparate government programs. C in projected cumulative warming by 2050 and 1.1 °C
The Health Effects Institute (HEI) has launched two new studies funded under RFA 21-1, Quantifying Real-World Impacts of Non-Tailpipe Particulate Matter Emissions. The new studies are: Improved Characterization of the Real-World Contributions and Impacts of Non-tailpipe Particulate Matter Emissions ,” led by Greg Evans, University of Toronto.
Exposure to ozone, long associated with impaired lung function, is also connected to health changes that can cause cardiovascular disease such as heart attack, high blood pressure and stroke, according to a new study of Chinese adults. The findings associated ozone exposure with markers of platelet activation and increased blood pressure.
Asphalt is a near-ubiquitous substance—it’s found in roads, on roofs and in driveways—but its chemical emissions rarely figure into urban air quality management plans. A new study now finds that asphalt is a significant source of air pollutants in urban areas, especially on hot and sunny days. —Khare et al.
The rapidly growing space industry may have a greater climate effect than the aviation industry and undo repair to the protective ozone layer if left unregulated, according to a new study led by UCL and published in the journal Earth’s Future as an open-access paper. Effect of rocket launch and re-entry emissions on global climate forcing.
Researchers from Rice University and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report in a paper in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry that particularly in Northeastern cities, ozone levels dropped even beyond what was anticipated by cutting emissions of NO x from 2002 to 2006. —Daniel Cohan, co-author. Earlier post.).
US EPA Region 9 8-hour ozone trends, 1979-2000. These State Implementation Plans (SIPs) are the roadmaps to meeting the 1997 8-hour ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) of 0.08 In 1997, EPA first established the 8-hour ozone standard, which replaced the older 1-hour ozone standard (0.12 Source: EPA.
As levels of ozone and fine particulate pollution (PM 2.5 ) rise, more patients end up in the ER with breathing problems, according to the largest US study of air pollution and respiratory emergency room visits of patients of all ages. In “Age-specific Associations of Ozone and PM 2.5 among children, 5.1%
have developed a simulator able to predict tropospheric ozone concentrations across the whole of South and East Asia. Tropospheric ozone is the main cause of photochemical smog, an atmospheric pollutant harmful to human health and plant growth. Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) and Toyota Central R&D Labs.,
and ozone at or above the current standards have been linked to neuroinflammation and high risk of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). suggesting long-term exposure to PM 2.5 , as well as ozone above the current US EPA standards, are associated with increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Exposures to concentrations of PM 2.5 g/m 3 in PM 2.5
In a recent open-access paper published in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology , researchers from the University of York report that alcohols in windshield washer fluid account for a larger fraction of real-world vehicle emissions than previous estimates have suggested. —Cliff et al.
The processes that create ozonepollution in the summer can also trigger the formation of wintertime air pollution, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder and NOAA, in partnership with the University of Utah. A key control strategy is to reduce emissions of the limiting reagent.
A University of Utah engineer has developed an inexpensive new method to remove oil sheen by repeatedly pressurizing and depressurizing ozone gas, creating microscopic bubbles that attack the oil so it can be removed by sand filters. Emerging contaminants, such as wastewater polluted with medications and personal care products.
Consumer products such as shampoo, cleaning products and paint now contribute as much to emitted volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in cities as tailpipe emissions from vehicles, according to a new study led by NOAA. Total VOC emission factors for end uses of petrochemical sources in the study. McDonald et al. Click to enlarge.
The approximate linear relationship for each region is notable, suggesting that the dependence of urban NO 2 pollution upon population follows a power law scaling with population. These regions contain two-thirds of total global anthropogenic NO x emissions. Credit: ACS, Lamsal et al. Click to enlarge. for India to 0.66
The Asian monsoon circulation provides an effective pathway for pollution from Asia, India, and Indonesia to enter the global stratosphere, according to a new international study led by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo. NCAR scientist William Randel, the lead author.
Black carbon and tropospheric ozone are harmful air pollutants that also contribute to climate change. Reducing black carbon and tropospheric ozone now will slow the rate of climate change within the first half of this century, the study said. Click to enlarge. °C (within a likely range of 0.2-0.7
The two combine in the atmosphere to make either nitric acid or peroxynitrous acid; the so-called branching ratio of these two chemicals is important in models of ozone production. has fully characterized a key chemical reaction that affects the formation of pollutants in smoggy air in urban areas. Credit: Caltech/Mitchio Okumura.
Among the many climate-related vulnerabilities that can impact its mission, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cites a likely increase in tropospheric ozonepollution as potentially making it more difficult to attain National Ambient Air Quality Standards ( NAAQS ) in many areas with existing ozone problems.
The California Air Resources Board today approved a statewide plan for attaining the federal health-based standard for ozone, typically experienced as smog. The 2022 State Implementation Plan Strategy identifies the state’s control strategy for meeting the federal 70 parts per billion, 8-hour ozone standard over the next 15 years.
The first peer-reviewed study to directly quantify how emissions from oil and natural gas (O&NG) activities influence summertime tropospheric ozone (O 3 ) pollution in the Colorado Front Range confirms that chemical vapors from oil and gas activities are a significant contributor to the region’s chronic ozone problem.
EPA’s TAG program aims to reduce air pollution in areas of the nation with the highest levels of ambient ozone and fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) pollution. Under the TAG program, eligible state and local air pollution control agencies must directly apply to EPA, but can select partners for a project consortium.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has finalized the new Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) (also called the Transport Rule). The Cross-State Air Pollution Rule replaces and strengthens the requirements of the 2005 Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR), which the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ordered EPA to revise in 2008.
In a cohort study of a subset of 2050 newborns from the Children’s Health Study in southern California, researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) found that an increase of 2 standard deviations in prenatal exposure to particulate matter in air pollution was associated with higher newborn total thyroxine (TT4) measures.
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