Found 9985 publications. Showing page 77 of 400:
2020
2020
Author Correction: Global and regional trends of atmospheric sulfur
Correction to: Scientific Reports https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-37304-0, published online 30 January 2019
2020
Equinor Mongstad. Spredningsberegninger av utslipp til luft.
NILU har vurdert spredning av utslipp til luft fra Mongstad raffineri. Bakgrunnen er krav fra Miljødirektoratet i forbindelse med ny virksomhetstillatelse. Fokus i studien er på NOx, SOx og støv/partikler. Timemiddelkonsentrasjoner er beregnet ved hjelp av modellen CONCX. Regionale beregninger av konsentrasjoner og avsetning er utført med WRF-EMEP modellsystem. CONCX-beregningene viser at maksimalt beregnet timemiddel er langt lavere enn norske grenseverdier. WRF-EMEP-beregningene viser lave maksimumsverdier av NOx/NO2, SO2 og svevestøv/PM10 i nærområdet til Mongstad raffineri. Alle beregnede maksimumsverdier er lavere enn norske grenseverdier. Av utslippene fra Mongstad avsettes 12 % av nitrogen, 17 % av svovel og 18 % av PM10 innenfor det innerste gridet (105 x 105 km2). Som et tillegg er det gjort vurderinger av de prioriterte stoffene bly, kvikksølv, krom, PCB7, kadmium og arsen. Bidraget fra Mongstad raffineri er lite.
NILU
2020
Målinger av SO2 i omgivelsene til Elkem Carbon og REC Solar. September 2019 – august 2020.
På oppdrag fra Elkem Carbon AS har NILU utført målinger av SO2 i omgivelsene til Elkem Carbon og REC Solar i Vågsbygd
(Kristiansand kommune). Bedriftene ble pålagt av Miljødirektoratet å gjennomføre SO2-målinger i omgivelsesluft. Målingene ble utført med SO2-monitor i boligområdet på Fiskåtangen (Konsul Wilds vei) og med passive SO2-prøvetakere ved 6 steder rundt bedriftene. Rapporten dekker målinger i perioden 1. september 2019 – 31. august 2020. Norske grenseverdier for luftkvalitet (SO2) ble overholdt ved Konsul Wilds Vei for alle midlingsperioder krevet i forurensningsforskriften (årsmiddel, vintermiddel, døgnmiddel og timemiddel). De mest belastede stedene i måleperioden var Konsul Wilds vei og Fiskåveien rett sør for bedriftene.
NILU
2020
Validation practices for satellite soil moisture retrievals: What are (the) errors?
This paper presents a community effort to develop good practice guidelines for the validation of global coarse-scale satellite soil moisture products. We provide theoretical background, a review of state-of-the-art methodologies for estimating errors in soil moisture data sets, practical recommendations on data pre-processing and presentation of statistical results, and a recommended validation protocol that is supplemented with an example validation exercise focused on microwave-based surface soil moisture products. We conclude by identifying research gaps that should be addressed in the near future.
2020
EEA-33 Industrial Emissions Country Profiles. Methodology report. Updated July 2020.
The industrial emissions country profiles summarise key data related to industry: its relevance with respect to economic contributions, energy and water consumption, as well as air and water emissions and waste generation. The country profiles are developed for the EEA-33 countries which includes the 28 EU Member States together with Iceland, Lichtenstein, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey.
The present revision (v. 3.0) of this report includes data available at date of release. This year, a new reporting, the so-called EU-Registry and thematic data reporting, is introduced in order to gather the former E-PRTR, LCP and IED reportings and finally replace them. The 2018 data are not yet readily available. Nevertheless, more quality checks have been performed on the latest E-PRTR database in order to have the cleanest final E-PRTR dataset possible. Hence, the industrial emissions country profiles are enriched with the most up-to-date data sources while still only covering the years up to 2017.
This report describes the underlying methodology to the industrial emissions country profiles that are presented as a Tableau story on the EEA webpages ([1]).
The scope of industry in this respect includes in short all industrial activities reported under the European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (E-PRTR) excluding agriculture (activity code 7.(a) and 7.(b)). The data sources include Eurostat, the E-PRTR, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reported under the Monitoring Mechanism Regulation (MMR) and air pollutant emission inventories reported under the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP), each of which have their own data categories. A recently developed EEA-mapping which align these different categories is used ([2]). The data sources and industry scope is presented in full detail in the Annexes following this report.
The water and air pollutants including greenhouse gases are selected based on criteria related to their relative impact. Emissions of heavy metals to air and water have been combined by weighted averages using both eco toxicology and human toxicology characterisation factors ([3]). The amounts of hazardous and non-hazardous waste reported under Eurostat is presented, but excluding the major mineral waste that dominates the mining and construction sectors.
The data quality is evaluated and gap filling of Eurostat data is performed when needed. A method for E-PRTR outlier handling is proposed and applied where appropriate.
The significance of industry, given by gross value added (GVA), energy consumption and water use, as well as generation of waste are presented in the Tableau story as a sector percentage of EEA-33 gross total as well as percentage of country total. The trend in air and water pollution is presented as totals per pollutants relative to the latest year (2017). For the latest year the emissions are also given as percentage per sector relative to country total. The details on how the presented data is processed and aggregated is described in Annex 2.
The report is to a large extent based on previous methodology reports for “Industrial pollution country profiles”, but is also further developed to reflect feedback received through Eionet review and general requests from EEA and the European Commission.
ETC/ATNI
2020
Revidert tiltaksutredning for lokal luftkvalitet i Stavanger
Tiltaksutredningen for lokal luftkvalitet i Stavanger, med handlingsplan og tiltak, skal bidra til at forurensningsnivået holder seg innenfor kravene i forurensningsforskriften. I tillegg belyser denne utredningen tiltak som vil være med på å redusere nivåene sammenlignet med helsemyndighetenes anbefaling til luftkvalitet. Tiltaksutredningen omfatter en kartlegging av luftkvaliteten i Stavanger ved trafikkberegninger og utslipps- og spredningsberegninger for PM10, PM2,5 og NO2 for Dagens situasjon 2018 og Framtidig situasjon 2024 med og uten tiltak. Basert på resultatene fra beregningene og i samarbeid med oppdragsgiver, er det foreslått en revidert handlings- og beredskapsplan som skal behandles politisk.
NILU
2020
Seabirds like gulls are common indicators in contaminant monitoring. The herring gull (Larus argentatus) is a generalist with a broad range of dietary sources, possibly introducing a weakness in its representativeness of aquatic contamination. To investigate the herring gull as an indicator of contamination in an urban‐influenced fjord, the Norwegian Oslofjord, we compared concentrations of a range of lipophilic and protein‐associated organohalogen contaminants (OHCs), Hg, and dietary markers in blood (n = 15), and eggs (n = 15) between the herring gull and the strict marine‐feeding common eider (Somateria mollissima) in the breeding period of May 2017. Dietary markers showed that the herring gull was less representative of the marine food web than the common eider. We found higher concentrations of lipophilic OHCs (wet weight and lipid weight) and Hg (dry weight) in the blood of common eider (mean ± SE ∑PCB = 210 ± 126 ng/g ww, 60 600 ± 28 300 ng/g lw; mean Hg = 4.94 ± 0.438 ng/g dw) than of the herring gull (mean ± SE ∑PCB = 19.0 ± 15.6 ng/g ww, 1210 ± 1510 ng/g lw; mean Hg = 4.26 ± 0.438 ng/g dw). Eggs gave opposite results; higher wet weight and lipid weight OHC concentrations in the herring gull (mean ± SE ∑PCB = 257 ± 203 ng/g ww, 3240 ± 2610 ng/g lw) than the common eider (mean ± SE ∑PCB = 18.2 ± 20.8 ng/g ww, 101 ± 121 ng/g lw), resulting in higher OHC maternal transfer ratios in gulls than eiders. We suggest that the matrix differences are due to fasting during incubation in the common eider. We suggest that in urban areas, herring gull might not be representative as an indicator of marine contamination but rather urban contaminant exposure. The common eider is a better indicator of marine pollution in the Oslofjord. The results are influenced by the matrix choice, as breeding strategy affects lipid dynamics regarding the transfer of lipids and contaminants to eggs and remobilization of contaminants from lipids to blood during incubation, when blood is drawn from the mother. Our results illustrate the benefit of a multispecies approach for a thorough picture of contaminant status in urban marine ecosystems. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2020;00:1–12. © 2020 The Authors. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC)
2020
A life cycle perspective on the benefits of renewable electricity generation
In this report, the benefits of the use of RES to produce electricity are investigated from a life cycle perspective. Six different impact indicators for the production of electricity are estimated for all Member States in the period 2005 to 2018 for a total of sixteen different renewable and non-RES. Results show variability in impact intensities across Member States and years, depending among others on fuel conversion efficiency (for electricity produced using combustion processes) and capacity utilization (for electricity producing from non-combustion processes, such as wind power). Finally, an estimate is given on gross avoided impact by comparing historic values to a counterfactual scenario where the level of electricity production from RES is frozen at 2005 level. Results show that the increased use of photovoltaic and wind power have contributed significantly to gross avoided impacts across the investigated impact indicators. A trade-off is that the increased use of PV appears to have increased potential ecotoxicity related impacts of the European electricity production system. The increased use of solid biomass for the generation of electricity and heat generally has a positive effect on avoided impacts, at the cost of increased potential land occupation. Overall, these finding can aid policy makers and private actors direct efforts towards specific areas which offer opportunities to decrease the impacts.
ETC/CME
2020
2020
Energetic particle precipitation is one of the main processes by which the sun influences atmospheric composition and structure. The polar middle atmosphere is chemically disturbed by the precipitation-induced production of nitric oxides (NOx) and hydrogen oxides (HOx) and the associated ozone (O3) loss, but the importance for the dynamics is still debated. The role of precipitating medium energy electrons (MEEs), which are able to penetrate into the mesosphere, has received increased attention, but has only recently begun to be incorporated in chemistry-climate models. We use the NCAR Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM) to study the climate impact from MEE precipitation by performing two idealized ensemble experiments under pre-industrial conditions, with and without the MEE forcing, over the period of the solar cycle 23 (only full calendar years, 1997–2007). Each experiment includes 20 11-year ensemble members, total 220 years. Our results indicate a strong month-to-month variability in the dynamical response to MEE throughout the winter period. We find a strengthening of the polar vortex in the northern hemisphere during December, but the signal decays rapidly in the following months. The polar vortex strengthening is likely attributable to planetary wave reduction due to increased zonal symmetries in upper stratospheric ozone heating, initially triggered by MEE-induced NOx advected into the sunlit regions. We also find a similar early winter polar vortex strengthening in the southern hemisphere during June. Changes in mean meridional circulation accompany these anomalous wave forcings, leading to dynamically-induced vertical temperature dipoles at high latitudes. The associated weakening of the stratospheric mean meridional circulation results in an upper stratospheric polar ozone deficit in early winter. This polar cap ozone deficit is strongest in the southern hemisphere and contributes to a polar vortex weakening in late winter, in concert with increased planetary wave forcing. In both hemispheres, the stratospheric polar vortex signal seems to migrate downwards into the troposphere and to the surface.
2020
Feasibility study for asphalt rubber pavements in Norway. ‘Rubber Road’ feasibility study.
RubberRoad proposes to use rubber from used tires in the production of asphalt for road and bicycle ways. This recycling approach has not gained much attention in Norway despite its apparent advantages, such as noise reduction, increased durability, safer shock impact, and reduced climate and environmental impacts. The Life Cycle Analysis carried out during this project feasibility study has demonstrated a series of environmental benefits in the use of rubber in asphalt production. It has also helped identify relevant knowledge gaps related to the use phase of the rubberized asphalt and its impact to noise, air and micro-plastic pollution. Better understanding of these effects would probably result in even larger environmental benefits of rubberized asphalt with respect to standard asphalt production. However, while the tire recycling industry is generally positive to the disposal of used tires in asphalt production, additional incentives need to be put in place for the Norwegian asphalt producers to consider actively contributing to this development.
NILU
2020
This report details the methodology and assumptions for the ETC/CME report: A life cycle perspective on the benefits of renewable electricity generation. In that report, gross avoided potential environmental impacts are estimated for electricity production in the EU-27 in the period 2005-2018. Avoided potential impacts are calculated by comparing the actual data with a counterfactual scenario where electricity production from Renewable Energy Sources is frozen at 2005 levels.
The overall methodological approach to the study is described in this report together with a short mathematical treatment of the calculation of life cycle indicators and subsequent scaling up to produce the two scenarios required to estimate gross avoided potential impacts. A short overview of data sources used in the study is included as well as a discussion and recommendations for the future.
ETC/CME
2020