Between 31 July and 21 August 2017, after a period of warm and sunny weather, open fires started burning in Western Greenland. The fires burned on peat lands that had become vulnerable to fires by permafrost thawing, and led to black carbon from the fires depositing on the Greenland Ice Sheet.
NILU scientists have participated in a new study that shows that leaf uptake of mercury is a globally important pathway of atmospheric mercury deposition.
Feeling cold? In Queen Maud Land in Antarctica, the temperature is currently between minus 27 and minus 33 degrees Celsius.
A new study in Nature Geoscience unveils a need of revising previous ethane and propane emissions studies, as these emissions have been underestimated by more than 50%. Such revision could in turn improve our understanding of the forceful and related methane emissions, still largely enigmatic to atmospheric sciences.
Marine litter knows no borders. Ocean currents carry plastic debris from all over the world towards the Arctic, but we cannot blame it all on others. Local sources also add to the floating plastic debris in the northern seas.
In January, 24 institutions from 9 countries formally joined forces in an extra-ordinary initiative towards long-term research cooperation – the Svalbard Integrated Arctic Earth Observing System (SIOS).
The EU has decided: From 1 February 2020 in Europe, industries are no longer allowed to use more than 0.1% of siloxanes D4 and D5 in skin and hair care products that are washed off during normal use.
There is great potential in a sustainable, circular bioeconomy. However, bioeconomy alone cannot work miracles, experts state; lifestyle, dietary and food choice behaviours must also play a role.
Volcanic gas emissions can affect the climate, environment and society, not only in the case of violent eruptions but also under quiescent degassing conditions.
Storvannet is a small lake close to Hammerfest. It looks idyllic, but the reason why NILU scientist Dr. Ingjerd Sunde Krogseth and colleagues are so interested in it is what lies below the lake’s surface. At the lake’s bottom, scientists have found that sediment and aquatic animals contain large amounts of chemical ingredients from cosmetic products called siloxanes.
Polar research receives increasing interest internationally due to the large environmental changes occurring in the Polar Regions. Thus, in late 2016, the Research Council of Norway (RCN) initiated an evaluation of Norwegian polar research, and NILU – Norwegian Institute for Air Research was among those institutes included in the evaluation.
We are now halfway to doubling the radiative forcing of CO2 since pre-industrial times, although CO2-concentrations are not halfway to doubling.
From the NILU Annual Report 2016: ACTRIS is an infrastructure enabling observation-based research to improve understanding of climate and air pollution. The main focus is aerosols, clouds and reactive gases in the atmosphere, and their physical, optical and chemical properties.
From the NILU Annual Report 2016: The fact that plastic waste pollutes the oceans is well known and has attracted a lot of media attention both in Norway and internationally. The visible plastic waste is what most people notice – but most of the plastic in the sea cannot be seen by the naked eye.
NILU’s Annual Report for 2016 is ready. Read about our research on, among other things, microplastics, nanomaterials and air quality measurement. Read it in digital format (ISSUU), or download the pdf
From the NILU Annual Report 2016: New technology brings new opportunities. So why haven’t we discarded those large monitoring stations and started using microsensors yet?
9. and 10. May 2017: While climate negotiators from almost 200 countries met in Bonn to hammer out a “rule book” for putting the Paris Agreement into practice, more than 30 scientists gathered in Oslo to discuss how to build an observation system that can monitor the nations’ pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Oslo Concert Hall, May 13. 2017: Dr. Elisabeth Pacyna from NILU’s Department for Environmental Impacts and Solutions has been honoured with the award of “Outstanding Pole in Norway 2017” for her work in science.
Britt Ann Kåstad Høiskar is employed as Research Director at NILU’s Urban Environment and Industry Department (INBY) from June 1, 2017.
Methane levels in the atmosphere have been steadily increasing since 2006 after a period of relative stability between the late 1990s and the mid 2000s. The reason for the increase is a current hot topic of debate between the importance of variation in natural sources, related to climate, versus emissions from human activities.
From Fram Forum 2017: Environmental contaminants can travel with the wind from the equator to the Arctic, and the longer such contaminants survive in the environment, the greater their potential to cause unwanted effects on people, animals, and nature. Scientists from NILU have recently criss-crossed Norway, using “UFOs” to search for airborne organic contaminants.
Our search for new environmental compounds never stops. However, with NILU’s new mass spectrometer, able to identify chemicals at extremely low levels, the job just got easier.
While electricity produced from hydropower is the primary means of residential heating in Norway, wood burning stoves are the second most important source of heating. The consequences are significant emissions of particulate matter (PM) and other compounds with negative effects on human health.
Cristina de Brito Beirão Guerreiro is appointed Research Director of NILU’s Department for Industry and Environmental Economics