Found 9989 publications. Showing page 56 of 400:
Integrated assessment of noise and air quality in European cities. Methodology.
The resulting index provides spatial information on the areas most affected combining noise and air pollution across European urban areas. This information can build on and contribute to the EEA’s integrated assessments and it is going to be used to disseminate information on the European environment to policy makers and to European citizens.
ETC/ATNI
2022
2022
2022
South Africa is the largest national source of industrial atmospheric pollutants in Africa, and the emission of acid-forming pollutants occurs mainly in the eastern Highveld region of the country. However, spatial information on deposition is very sparse beyond the primary emissions zone. Here we quantify wet and dry deposition at four sites from the far northern savanna (Vaalwater) through the grasslands of the interior coal-producing belt of Mpumalanga (Elandsfontein) and the remote KwaZulu Natal Drakensberg mountains (Cathedral Peak) to the fynbos of the southern coast of the country (Knysna), a distance of over 1200 km. Rainwater samples were collected using automated wet-only samplers and analysed for mineral ions and water-soluble organic acids. Wet deposition fluxes were driven largely by rainfall amount rather than differences in chemical composition for three inland sites, with the highest wet deposited sulphur (S) (5.1 kgS/ha/year) and nitrogen (N) (6.9 kgN/ha/year) found in the Drakensberg mountains, greatly expanding the potentially harmful deposition footprint beyond the industrialised Highveld zone. Furthermore, the study period covered the extreme drought years of 2015–2016; hence, wet deposition fluxes could be significantly underestimated relative to more average rainfall years. Dry deposition fluxes, estimated using passive samplers and inferential methods, were far higher at the industrial Highveld site. Overall, total (wet + dry) deposition of S was greatest at the Highveld site (12.0 kgS/ha/year), but the greatest total N deposition (7.0 kgN/ha/year) was found at the remote Drakensberg site. Measured levels of both S and N deposition are well within the ranges found to cause acidification of soils and surface waters in northern hemisphere studies, or changes in vegetation species composition, and could be much higher in more typical, wetter years.
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.
2022
Low trophic species are often mentioned as additional food sources to achieve broader and more sustainable utilisation of the ocean. The aim of this study was to map the food potential of Norwegian orange-footed sea cucumber (Cucumaria frondosa). C. frondosa contained 7% protein, 1% lipids with a high proportion of polyunsaturated fatty acids, and a variety of micronutrients. The nutrient density scores (NDS) of C. frondosa were above average compared towards daily recommended intakes (DRI) for men and women (age 31–60) but below when capped at 100% of DRI. The concentrations of persistent organic pollutants and trace elements were in general low, except for inorganic arsenic (iAs) (0.73 mg per kg) which exceeded the limits deemed safe by food authorities. However, the small number of samples analysed for iAs lowers the ability to draw a firm conclusion. The carbon footprint from a value chain with a dredge fishery, processing in Norway and retail in Asia was assessed to 8 kg carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2eq.) per kg C. frondosa, the fishery causing 90%. Although, C. frondosa has some nutritional benefits, the carbon footprint or possible content of iAs may restrict the consumption.
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
2022
Screening Programme 2020, Part 1 and 2: Plastic Additives and REACH Compounds
I screening 2020 gjennomført av Norsk institutt for vannforskning (NIVA) og NILU-Norsk institutt for luftforskning i fellesskap ble det satt søkelys på forekomst og mulige miljøproblemer av 160 kjemikalier. Forbindelser som er valgt ut til Screening 2020 inkluderer tilsetningsstoffer til plast og nylig registrerte stoffer i REACH registeret.
Norsk institutt for vannforskning (NIVA)
2022
A multi-pollutant and multi-sectorial approach to screening the consistency of emission inventories
Some studies show that significant uncertainties affect emission inventories, which may impeach conclusions based on air-quality model results. These uncertainties result from the need to compile a wide variety of information to estimate an emission inventory. In this work, we propose and discuss a screening method to compare two emission inventories, with the overall goal of improving the quality of emission inventories by feeding back the results of the screening to inventory compilers who can check the inconsistencies found and, where applicable, resolve errors. The method targets three different aspects: (1) the total emissions assigned to a series of large geographical areas, countries in our application; (2) the way these country total emissions are shared in terms of sector of activity; and (3) the way inventories spatially distribute emissions from countries to smaller areas, cities in our application. The first step of the screening approach consists of sorting the data and keeping only emission contributions that are relevant enough. In a second step, the method identifies, among those significant differences, the most important ones that provide evidence of methodological divergence and/or errors that can be found and resolved in at least one of the inventories. The approach has been used to compare two versions of the CAMS-REG European-scale inventory over 150 cities in Europe for selected activity sectors. Among the 4500 screened pollutant sectors, about 450 were kept as relevant, among which 46 showed inconsistencies. The analysis indicated that these inconsistencies arose almost equally from large-scale reporting and spatial distribution differences. They mostly affect SO2 and PM coarse emissions from the industrial and residential sectors. The screening approach is general and can be used for other types of applications related to emission inventories.
2022
With the current possible presence of thousands of PFAS compounds in industrial emissions, there is an increasing need to assess the impacts of PFAS regulation of conventional PFAS on one hand and the exposure to emerging and yet unknown PFAS on the other. Today’s analytical methodologies using targeted approaches are not sufficient to determine the complete suite of PFAS present. To evaluate the presence of unknown PFAS, we investigated in this study the occurrence of an extended range of target PFAS in various species from the marine and terrestrial Norwegian environment, in relation to the extractable organic fluorine (EOF), which yields the total amount of organic fluorine. The results showed a varying presence of extractable fluorinated organics, with glaucous gull eggs, otter liver and polar bear plasma showing the highest EOF and a high abundance of PFAS as well. The targeted PFAS measurements explained 1% of the organic fluorine for moose liver as the lowest and 94% for otter liver as the highest. PFCAs like trifluoro acetic acid (TFA, reported semi-quantitatively), played a major role in explaining the organic fluorine present. Emerging PFAS as the perfluoroethylcyclohexane sulfonate (PFECHS), was found in polar bear plasma in quantifiable amounts for the first time, confirming earlier detection in arctic species far removed from emission sources. To enable a complete organic fluorine mass balance in wildlife, new approaches are needed, to uncover the presence of new emerging PFAS as cyclic- or ether PFAS together with chlorinated PFAS as well as fluorinated organic pesticides and pharmaceuticals.
2022
Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service
2022
Microplastics in Norwegian coastal areas, rivers, lakes and air (MIKRONOR1)
The Norwegian Environment Agency (Miljødirektoratet, NEA) tasked the Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA) to initiate Norway’s National microplastic monitoring program. The program “Microplastics in Norwegian coastal areas, rivers, lakes and air (MIKRONOR)”, was designed to target the multitude of environments in the Norwegian coastal, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. The primary aim is to provide information on levels and types of microplastics in aquatic environments as well as in air and build on the baseline data already generated for a number of these environments on previous assignments by NEA.
This report contains the first results of coastal sites, open marine waters, lakes, rivers and air including high-volume water samples (freshwater and marine, n=48), Ferrybox samples (marine, n=20), blue mussels (marine, n=71), vertical plankton net samples (marine, n=29) and 24 air samples (precipitation n= 12 and active air sampling n = 12).
Norsk institutt for vannforskning (NIVA)
2022
2022
2022
The National Mercury (Hg) Assessment in Norway evaluates the connections among: (a) national, regional and global Hg policies and regulations, (b) emissions, releases, uses and exposure pathways of Hg, and (c) concentrations of Hg in the environment, biota, and humans, measured during 2000-2020. Our findings suggest that the key changes of Hg in humans and the environment are highly dependent on the quality of the datasets, yet connections both to national and regional sources, as well as climate related drivers could be made for some data sets.
Norwegian Environment Agency
2022
Impact of the Pacific sector sea ice loss on the sudden stratospheric warming characteristics
The atmospheric response to Arctic sea ice loss remains a subject of much debate. Most studies have focused on the sea ice retreat in the Barents-Kara Seas and its troposphere-stratosphere influence. Here, we investigate the impact of large sea ice loss over the Chukchi-Bering Seas on the sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) phenomenon during the easterly phase of the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation through idealized large-ensemble experiments based on a global atmospheric model with a well-resolved stratosphere. Although culminating in autumn, the prescribed sea ice loss induces near-surface warming that persists into winter and deepens as the SSW develops. The resulting temperature contrasts foster a deep cyclonic circulation over the North Pacific, which elicits a strong upward wavenumber-2 activity into the stratosphere, reinforcing the climatological planetary wave pattern. While not affecting the SSW occurrence frequency, the amplified wave forcing in the stratosphere significantly increases the SSW duration and intensity, enhancing cold air outbreaks over the continents afterward.
2022
First documentation of plastic ingestion in the arctic glaucous gull (Larus hyperboreus)
Arctic wildlife is facing multiple stressors, including increasing plastic pollution. Seabirds are intrinsic to marine ecosystems, but most seabird populations are declining. We lack knowledge on plastic ingestion in many arctic seabird species, and there is an urgent need for more information to enable risk assessment and monitoring. Our study aimed to investigate the occurrence of plastics in glaucous gulls (Larus hyperboreus) breeding on Svalbard. The glaucous gull is a sentinel species for the health of the arctic marine ecosystem, but there have been no studies investigating plastic occurrence in this species since 1994. As a surface feeder and generalist living in an area with high human activity on Svalbard, we expected to find plastic in its stomach. We investigated for plastic >1 mm and documented plastic ingestion for the first time in glaucous gulls, with a frequency of occurrence of 14.3% (n = 21). The plastics were all identified as user plastics and consisted of polypropylene (PP) and polystyrene (PS). Our study provides new quantitative and qualitative data on plastic burden and polymer type reported in a standardized manner establishing a reference point for future research and monitoring of arctic gulls on national and international levels.
2022