Found 9941 publications. Showing page 350 of 398:
2022
Grenseområdene Norge-Russland. Luft- og nedbørkvalitet 2021.
Smelteverkene i nordvest-Russland slapp tidligere ut store mengder svoveldioksid (SO2) og tungmetaller. Utslippene påvirket luft- og nedbørkvalitet i grenseområdene. Smelteverket i Nikel stengte ned 23. desember 2020 og lokal luftkvalitet ble betydelig forbedret. Dog er det fortsatt utslipp fra varmekraftverket i Nikel i den kalde årstiden. Detaljer rundt utslippene fra Zapoljarnyj er ikke kjente. Herværende rapport viser resultatene for kalenderåret 2021, det vil si året etter stengningen. Nivåene av forurensning er lave og grenseverdier og målsettingsverdier er overholdt med klar margin.
NILU
2022
2022
Robust evidence for reversal of the trend in aerosol effective climate forcing
Anthropogenic aerosols exert a cooling influence that offsets part of the greenhouse gas warming. Due to their short tropospheric lifetime of only several days, the aerosol forcing responds quickly to emissions. Here, we present and discuss the evolution of the aerosol forcing since 2000. There are multiple lines of evidence that allow us to robustly conclude that the anthropogenic aerosol effective radiative forcing (ERF) – both aerosol–radiation interactions (ERFari) and aerosol–cloud interactions (ERFaci) – has become less negative globally, i.e. the trend in aerosol effective radiative forcing changed sign from negative to positive. Bottom-up inventories show that anthropogenic primary aerosol and aerosol precursor emissions declined in most regions of the world; observations related to aerosol burden show declining trends, in particular of the fine-mode particles that make up most of the anthropogenic aerosols; satellite retrievals of cloud droplet numbers show trends in regions with aerosol declines that are consistent with these in sign, as do observations of top-of-atmosphere radiation. Climate model results, including a revised set that is constrained by observations of the ocean heat content evolution show a consistent sign and magnitude for a positive forcing relative to the year 2000 due to reduced aerosol effects. This reduction leads to an acceleration of the forcing of climate change, i.e. an increase in forcing by 0.1 to 0.3 W m−2, up to 12 % of the total climate forcing in 2019 compared to 1750 according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
2022
2022
The Screening Programme 2021 was carried out by the Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA) and NILU-Norwegian Institute for Air Research. The spotlight was placed on the occurrence and possible environmental problems of 218 chemicals. The selected substances may be included in numerous products and their usage patterns are not easily defined so an array of different locations and sample-types were investigated. The total number of results exceeds 26 000. Results are can be downloaded from the database Vannmiljø.
Norsk institutt for vannforskning
2022
2022
A pooled analysis of molecular epidemiological studies on modulation of DNA repair by host factors
Levels of DNA damage represent the dynamics between damage formation and removal. Therefore, to better interpret human biomonitoring studies with DNA damage endpoints, an individual’s ability to recognize and properly remove DNA damage should be characterized. Relatively few studies have included DNA repair as a biomarker and therefore, assembling and analyzing a pooled database of studies with data on base excision repair (BER) was one of the goals of hCOMET (EU-COST CA15132). A group of approximately 1911 individuals, was gathered from 8 laboratories which run population studies with the comet-based in vitro DNA repair assay. BER incision activity data were normalized and subsequently correlated with various host factors. BER was found to be significantly higher in women. Although it is generally accepted that age is inversely related to DNA repair, no overall effect of age was found, but sex differences were most pronounced in the oldest quartile (>61 years). No effect of smoking or occupational exposures was found. A body mass index (BMI) above 25 kg/m2 was related to higher levels of BER. However, when BMI exceeded 35 kg/m2, repair incision activity was significantly lower. Finally, higher BER incision activity was related to lower levels of DNA damage detected by the comet assay in combination with formamidopyrimidine DNA glycosylase (Fpg), which is in line with the fact that oxidatively damaged DNA is repaired by BER. These data indicate that BER plays a role in modulating the steady-state level of DNA damage that is detected in molecular epidemiological studies and should therefore be considered as a parallel endpoint in future studies.
2022
2022
Emission inventories indicate that thallium, a highly toxic metal, is emitted during coal burning and cement production. These estimates have been established only for the 1980s and 1990s but up to now they have not been compared to long-term observations. Here we used alpine ice cores to document thallium pollution over Europe since ∼1850. Ice-core thallium concentrations increased from 1890 to 1910, and decreased after 1965 to concentrations that were half 1890 levels. Comparison of ice-core trends, estimated past emissions, and state-of-the-art atmospheric aerosol transport modeling suggest that coal burning was responsible for thallium pollution in Europe, particularly from 1920 to 1965 because of high coal consumption at that time. The subsequent decline resulted from decreased coal consumption and reduced emissions following technological improvements. The ice-core data suggest that the rapid growth of cement production that took place in Europe after 1950 had a limited impact on thallium pollution.
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
2022
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2022
Microplastics in Norwegian coastal areas, rivers, lakes and air (MIKRONOR1)
Norsk institutt for vannforskning
2022
The EmSite model for high resolution emissions from machinery in construction sites
The report describes the EmSite model developed to estimate exhaust and non-exhaust emissions from non-road mobile machinery (NRMM) used in building and construction. The model is based on a complete national database of the exact location of construction and building activity, machine registries and variables that affect emissions (ground conditions, meteorology, type of ground material). EmSite model allows us to determine, i) the location, area and time of construction projects at fine resolution; ii) energy demand for NRMM; and iii) fuel consumption, air pollutants and GHGs emissions. For exhaust emissions, specific dynamic emission factors for NRMMs were developed. For non-exhaust emissions, an approach based on the Tier 1 (EMEP/EEA Guidebook, 2019) was chosen. EmSite allows for bottom-up estimates for NRMM employed in construction, and the results are comparable with official air pollutant and GHGs emissions.
NILU
2022
Screening of Chlorinated Paraffins, Dechloranes and UV-filters in Nordic Countries
In 2019, the Nordic screening group decided to perform a Nordic screening on chlorinated paraffins, dechloranes and UV-filters. These compounds are used in a wide range of applications. They all have long range transport characteristics and can potentially be regulated under the Stockholm POP convention. However, there are still huge data gaps, which need to be addressed in order to fulfill regulation requests. Several topics and questions were in focus for more measurements and a deeper understanding: (1) importance of long-range atmospheric transport and deposition, (2) differences/similarities in terrestrial versus marine food chains, and (3) variations between the Nordic countries and between urban and remote areas. Based on these priorities, availability of samples, and other practical reasons, samples from different Nordic countries, different environments, and both urban and remote places were selected. This study includes analysis of the compounds in air, marine and freshwater fish and marine mammals and bird eggs, but as the chlorinated paraffins also have been found to accumulate in the terrestrial food web, terrestrial mammals and bird eggs were included as well. Additionally, samples of pine needles were analysed both to look at the possibility for long range transport and to investigate it as a possible source of chlorinated paraffins for the terrestrial mammals.
Nordic Council of Ministers
2022
Do Carbon Nanotubes and Asbestos Fibers Exhibit Common Toxicity Mechanisms?
During the last two decades several nanoscale materials were engineered for industrial and medical applications. Among them carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are the most exploited nanomaterials with global production of around 1000 tons/year. Besides several commercial benefits of CNTs, the fiber-like structures and their bio-persistency in lung tissues raise serious concerns about the possible adverse human health effects resembling those of asbestos fibers. In this review, we present a comparative analysis between CNTs and asbestos fibers using the following four parameters: (1) fibrous needle-like shape, (2) bio-persistent nature, (3) high surface to volume ratio and (4) capacity to adsorb toxicants/pollutants on the surface. We also compare mechanisms underlying the toxicity caused by certain diameters and lengths of CNTs and asbestos fibers using downstream pathways associated with altered gene expression data from both asbestos and CNT exposure. Our results suggest that indeed certain types of CNTs are emulating asbestos fiber as far as associated toxicity is concerned.
MDPI
2022
Evaluation and Global-Scale Observation of Nitrous Oxide from IASI on Metop-A
Nitrous oxide (N2O) is a greenhouse gas difficult to estimate by satellite because of its weak spectral signature in the infra-red band and its low variability in the troposphere. Nevertheless, this study presents the evaluation of new tropospheric N2O observations from the Infrared Atmospheric Sounder Interferometer (IASI) on Metop-A using the Toulouse N2O Retrieval Version 2.0 tool. This tool is based on the Radiative Transfer for Tiros Operational Vertical sounder (RTTOV) model version 12.3 coupled to the Levenberg-Marquardt optimal estimation method enabling the simultaneous retrieval of methane, water vapour, temperature profiles together with surface temperature and emissivity within the 1240–1350 cm−1 window. In this study, we focused on the upper troposphere (300 hPa) where the sensitivity of IASI is significant. The IASI N2O data has been evaluated using aircraft N2O observations from the High-performance Instrumented Airborne Platform for Environmental Research Pole-to-Pole Observations (HIPPO) campaigns in 2009, 2010, and 2011 and from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network (GGGRN) in 2011. In addition, we evaluated the IASI N2O using ground-based N2O measurements from 9 stations belonging to the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC). We found a total random error of ∼2 ppbv (0.6%) for one single retrieval at 300 hPa. Under favorable conditions, this error is also found in the vertical level pressure range 300–500 hPa. It decreases rapidly to ∼0.4 ppbv (0.1%) when we average on a 1° × 1° box. In addition, independent observations allows the estimation of bias with the IASI TN2OR v2.0 N2O. The bias between IASI and aircraft N2O data at 300 hPa is ∼1.0 ppbv (∼0.3%). We found an estimated random error of ∼2.3 ppbv (∼0.75%). This study also shows relatively high correlations between IASI data and aircraft in situ profiles but more varying correlations over the year 2011 depending on the location between IASI and NDACC remote sensing data. Finally, we present daily, monthly, and seasonal IASI N2O horizontal distributions in the upper troposphere as well as cross sections for different seasons that exhibit maxima in the Tropical band especially over Africa and South America.
MDPI
2022