Found 9941 publications. Showing page 300 of 398:
2019
2019
Kartlegging av lokal luftkvalitet i Hønefoss. Målinger 2018-2019.
NILU - Norsk institutt for luftforskning har på oppdrag fra Ringerike kommune gjennomført kartlegging av lokal luftkvalitet i Hønefoss. Måleprogrammet startet juni 2018 og ble avsluttet i mai 2019. Målingene ble gjennomført for å framskaffe kunnskapsgrunnlag for ny byplan i Hønefoss.
Måleprogrammet inneholdt måling av svevestøv og nitrogendioksid samt meteorologiske parametre som temperatur, trykk, relativ fuktighet og vind.
Årsmiddelkonsentrasjonen av PM2,5 lå under øvre, men over nedre vurderingsterskel. Årsmiddelverdiene av NO2 og PM10 lå ikke over nedre vurderingsterskel. Døgnmiddelverdier av PM10 og timemiddelkonsentrasjon av NO2 lå under øvre, men over nedre vurderingsterskel.
NILU
2019
Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alfa (PPARA/NR1C1) is a ligand activated nuclear receptor that is a key regulator of lipid metabolism in tissues with high fatty acid catabolism such as the liver. Here, we cloned PPARA from polar bear liver tissue and studied in vitro transactivation of polar bear and human PPARA by environmental contaminants using a luciferase reporter assay. Six hinge and ligand-binding domain amino acids have been substituted in polar bear PPARA compared to human PPARA. Perfluorocarboxylic acids (PFCA) and perfluorosulfonic acids induced the transcriptional activity of both human and polar bear PPARA. The most abundant PFCA in polar bear tissue, perfluorononanoate, increased polar bear PPARA-mediated luciferase activity to a level comparable to that of the potent PPARA agonist WY-14643 (~8-fold, 25 μM). Several brominated flame retardants were weak agonists of human and polar bear PPARA. While single exposures to polychlorinated biphenyls did not, or only slightly, increase the transcriptional activity of PPARA, a technical mixture of PCBs (Aroclor 1254) strongly induced the transcriptional activity of human (~8-fold) and polar bear PPARA (~22-fold). Polar bear PPARA was both quantitatively and qualitatively more susceptible than human PPARA to transactivation by less lipophilic compounds.
Nature Portfolio
2019
Bird feathers as a biomonitor for environmental pollutants: Prospects and pitfalls
Due to increasing amounts of hazardous chemicals released into the environment, there is a high demand for developing easy and non-destructive biomonitoring tools. In a recent paper published in Trends in Analytical Chemistry, Rutkowska et al. (2018) concluded that feathers are a good matrix for biomonitoring of environmental pollutants in birds. In this commentary, we discuss the general conclusion of this paper. We provide several examples for which this statement is not correct, and we emphasize that only for legacy persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and mercury there is currently enough scientific evidence to use feathers as a reliable biomonitor, given that appropriate sampling designs and QA/QC protocols are taken into account. Furthermore, we discuss different pretreatment (e.g. feather washing) and analytical protocols along with specific QA/QC to be considered. In summary, this commentary provides an overview of the prospects and pitfalls when using feathers as a biomonitor for environmental pollutants.
2019
John Wiley & Sons
2019
2019
Environmental pollutants in the terrestrial and urban environment 2018
Samples from the urban terrestrial environment in the Oslo area were analysed for various inorganic and organic
environmental pollutants. The selected species were earthworm, fieldfare, sparrowhawk, brown rat, red fox and
badger. Air and soil samples were also included in the study to further the understanding on sources and uptake of
pollutants. A foodchain approach was used to investigate trophic magnification of the different compounds.
NILU
2019
Low cost sensor systems for air quality assessment. Possibilities and challenges.
Air quality is enjoying popular interest in the last years, with numerous projects initiated by civil society or individuals that aim to assess the quality of air locally, aided by new, low-cost monitoring technologies that can be used by “everyone”. Such initiatives are very welcome, but in this highly technical and (in the western world) thoroughly regulated area, the professional community seems to struggle with communication with these initiatives, trying to reconcile the often highly technical aspects with the social ones. The technical issues include subjects such as monitoring techniques, air quality assessment methods, or quality control of measurements, and disciplines such as metrology, atmospheric science or informatics.
In this report, we would like to provide the reader with a practically oriented overview indicating the position of these new technologies in the ecosystem of air quality monitoring and measurement activities. Sensing techniques are rapidly evolving. This ‘ever’ improving capability implies among other, that there is currently no traceable method of evaluation of data quality. Despite the efforts of numerous groups, including within the European standardization system, a certification system will take some time to develop. This has important implications for example, when comparing measurements taken in time, by different devices (or different versions of the same sensor system device). Fitness for purpose – why are we measuring or monitoring and how do we intend to use the information we obtain – should always be the main criterion for the technological choice.
The report starts with an overview of elements of a monitoring system and proceed to describe the new technologies. Then, we give examples of how low-cost sensor technologies are being used by citizens. These examples are followed by reflections upon providing actionable information. Having learned from practical applications of sensor systems, we also discuss how the data from citizen activities can be used to develop new information, and provide some reflections on developing sensor systems monitoring on a larger scale.
We feel that the new technologies, while a disruptive change, provide many exciting opportunities, and we hope that this report will contribute to promote their use alongside with other assessment methods. We believe that increased understanding of technical issues we discuss will ultimately lead to better communication on air quality, and in its consequence, will enable further improvements in this domain.
ETC/ACM
2019
Monitoring of long-range transported air pollutants in Norway. Annual report 2018.
This report presents results from the monitoring of atmospheric composition and deposition of air pollution in 2018, and focuses on main components in air and precipitation, particulate and gaseous phase of inorganic constituents, particulate carbonaceous matter, ground level ozone and particulate matter. 2018 was a special year with elevated ozone levels during the whole summer season due to prolonged heat and drought.
NILU
2019
Estimating tropospheric and stratospheric winds using infrasound from explosions
The receiver-to-source backazimuth of atmospheric infrasound signals is biased when cross-winds are present along the propagation path. Infrasound from 598 surface explosions from over 30 years in northern Finland is measured with high spatial resolution on an array 178 km almost due North. The array is situated in the classical shadow-zone distance from the explosions. However, strong infrasound is almost always observed, which is most plausibly due to partial reflections from stratospheric altitudes. The most probable propagation paths are subject to both tropospheric and stratospheric cross-winds, and the wave-propagation modelling in this study yields good correspondence between the observed backazimuth deviation and cross-winds from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Reanalysis (ERA)-Interim reanalysis product. This study demonstrates that atmospheric cross-winds can be estimated directly from infrasound data using propagation time and backazimuth deviation observations. This study finds these cross-wind estimates to be in good agreement with the ERA-Interim reanalysis.
Acoustical Society of America (ASA)
2019
The Lagrangian particle dispersion model FLEXPART version 10.4
The Lagrangian particle dispersion model FLEXPART in its original version in the mid-1990s was designed for calculating the long-range and mesoscale dispersion of hazardous substances from point sources, such as those released after an accident in a nuclear power plant. Over the past decades, the model has evolved into a comprehensive tool for multi-scale atmospheric transport modeling and analysis and has attracted a global user community. Its application fields have been extended to a large range of atmospheric gases and aerosols, e.g., greenhouse gases, short-lived climate forcers like black carbon and volcanic ash, and it has also been used to study the atmospheric branch of the water cycle. Given suitable meteorological input data, it can be used for scales from dozens of meters to global. In particular, inverse modeling based on source–receptor relationships from FLEXPART has become widely used. In this paper, we present FLEXPART version 10.4, which works with meteorological input data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Integrated Forecast System (IFS) and data from the United States National Centers of Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Global Forecast System (GFS). Since the last publication of a detailed FLEXPART description (version 6.2), the model has been improved in different aspects such as performance, physicochemical parameterizations, input/output formats, and available preprocessing and post-processing software. The model code has also been parallelized using the Message Passing Interface (MPI). We demonstrate that the model scales well up to using 256 processors, with a parallel efficiency greater than 75 % for up to 64 processes on multiple nodes in runs with very large numbers of particles. The deviation from 100 % efficiency is almost entirely due to the remaining nonparallelized parts of the code, suggesting large potential for further speedup. A new turbulence scheme for the convective boundary layer has been developed that considers the skewness in the vertical velocity distribution (updrafts and downdrafts) and vertical gradients in air density. FLEXPART is the only model available considering both effects, making it highly accurate for small-scale applications, e.g., to quantify dispersion in the vicinity of a point source. The wet deposition scheme for aerosols has been completely rewritten and a new, more detailed gravitational settling parameterization for aerosols has also been implemented. FLEXPART has had the option of running backward in time from atmospheric concentrations at receptor locations for many years, but this has now been extended to also work for deposition values and may become useful, for instance, for the interpretation of ice core measurements. To our knowledge, to date FLEXPART is the only model with that capability. Furthermore, the temporal variation and temperature dependence of chemical reactions with the OH radical have been included, allowing for more accurate simulations for species with intermediate lifetimes against the reaction with OH, such as ethane. Finally, user settings can now be specified in a more flexible namelist format, and output files can be produced in NetCDF format instead of FLEXPART's customary binary format. In this paper, we describe these new developments. Moreover, we present some tools for the preparation of the meteorological input data and for processing FLEXPART output data, and we briefly report on alternative FLEXPART versions.
2019
Observed recent change in climate and potential for decay of Norwegian wood structures
The wood rot decay of structures and buildings in Norway represents high costs. This paper reports the observed trends for the potential rot decay of Norwegian wood structures in the cities of Oslo and Bergen over the recent 55 years, calculated as the “wood rot climate index” developed by Scheffer, and compares the reports with previous reported values based on climate change modelling. The observed change in the wood rot climate index was close to the modelling result. Bergen is exposed directly to the westerly Atlantic winds and has among the highest rain amounts in Norway, whereas Oslo is shielded by the Scandinavian mountain chain and has much less rain. The change in the wood rot climate index since 1961 was about 20% in both cities, but the trend in the index (climate index change per year) was about 80% stronger in Bergen. The absolute index changes were largest in the summer; then spring (50 to 60% of the summer increase); and small, zero, or even negative (autumn in Oslo) in the remaining seasons. The relative changes were higher in the spring than summer and very high in Bergen in the winter from a low value. The change to positive index values in the spring and winter indicates temperature and humidity conditions favoring the growth of wood rot and, thus, extended the rot duration through the year. The expected increase in the future wood rot decay potential in Norway shows the need for increased focus on adaption measures to reduce the related damages and costs.
MDPI
2019
2019
2019
2019