Found 9822 publications. Showing page 379 of 393:
2024
Geopolitical events have shown to threaten European energy security in 2022. In Norway, accustomed to low energy prices, the southern part saw 4 times higher electricity prices in 2022 than long term average, whereas in the north, energy prices remained stable. This offers an opportunity to examine the effect of price on household energy consumption and PM2.5 emissions from the residential sector. In the south, electricity consumption went down by 10% while in the north it remained unchanged relative to expected values. While the documented correlation between increased electricity prices and reduced consumption is well-established, our study uniquely captures a substantial shift towards wood as an alternative energy source. In the south, wood for heating increased by approximately 40%, effectively replacing half of the electricity saved. This increase happened despite prices being curbed by strong government subsidies on electricity. Faced with higher energy costs in Europe, we simulate a scenario where consumers across Europe look for affordable energy. With gas and electricity prices predicted to remain well above long-term averages until 2030, biomass will be an attractive option. Our study shows how a shift can endanger Europe's Zero-Pollution strategy, and the need for initiatives targeting the reduction of residential biomass heating.
Elsevier
2024
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2024
Widespread Pesticide Distribution in the European Atmosphere Questions their Degradability in Air
Risk assessment of pesticide impacts on remote ecosystems makes use of model-estimated degradation in air. Recent studies suggest these degradation rates to be overestimated, questioning current pesticide regulation. Here, we investigated the concentrations of 76 pesticides in Europe at 29 rural, coastal, mountain, and polar sites during the agricultural application season. Overall, 58 pesticides were observed in the European atmosphere. Low spatial variation of 7 pesticides suggests continental-scale atmospheric dispersal. Based on concentrations in free tropospheric air and at Arctic sites, 22 pesticides were identified to be prone to long-range atmospheric transport, which included 15 substances approved for agricultural use in Europe and 7 banned ones. Comparison between concentrations at remote sites and those found at pesticide source areas suggests long atmospheric lifetimes of atrazine, cyprodinil, spiroxamine, tebuconazole, terbuthylazine, and thiacloprid. In general, our findings suggest that atmospheric transport and persistence of pesticides have been underestimated and that their risk assessment needs to be improved.
2024
Emission ensemble approach to improve the development of multi-scale emission inventories
Many studies have shown that emission inventories are one of the inputs with the most critical influences on the results of air quality modelling. Comparing emission inventories among themselves is, therefore, essential to build confidence in emission estimates. In this work, we extend the approach of Thunis et al. (2022) to compare emission inventories by building a benchmark that serves as a reference for comparisons. This benchmark is an ensemble that is based on three state-of-the-art EU-wide inventories: CAMS-REG, EMEP and EDGAR. The ensemble-based methodology screens differences between inventories and the ensemble. It excludes differences that are not relevant and identifies among the remaining ones those that need special attention. We applied the ensemble-based screening to both an EU-wide and a local (Poland) inventory.
The EU-wide analysis highlighted a large number of inconsistencies. While the origin of some differences between EDGAR and the ensemble can be identified, their magnitude remains to be explained. These differences mostly occur for SO2 (sulfur oxides), PM (particulate matter) and NMVOC (non-methane volatile organic carbon) for the industrial and residential sectors and reach a factor of 10 in some instances. Spatial inconsistencies mostly occur for the industry and other sectors.
At the local scale, inconsistencies relate mostly to differences in country sectorial shares that result from different sectors/activities being accounted for in the two types of inventories. This is explained by the fact that some emission sources are omitted in the local inventory due to a lack of appropriate geographically allocated activity data. We identified sectors and pollutants for which discussion between local and EU-wide emission compilers would be needed in order to reduce the magnitude of the observed differences (e.g. in the residential and industrial sectors).
The ensemble-based screening proved to be a useful approach to spot inconsistencies by reducing the number of necessary inventory comparisons. With the progressive resolution of inconsistencies and associated inventory improvements, the ensemble will improve. In this sense, we see the ensemble as a useful tool to motivate the community around a single common benchmark and monitor progress towards the improvement of regionally and locally developed emission inventories.
2024
Nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) is a potent and long-lived greenhouse gas that is widely used in the manufacture of semiconductors, photovoltaic cells, and flat panel displays. Using atmospheric observations from eight monitoring stations from the Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (AGAGE) and inverse modeling with a global 3-D atmospheric chemical transport model (GEOS-Chem), we quantify global and regional NF3 emission from 2015 to 2021. We find that global emissions have grown from 1.93 ± 0.58 Gg yr–1 (± one standard deviation) in 2015 to 3.38 ± 0.61 Gg yr–1 in 2021, with an average annual increase of 10% yr–1. The available observations allow us to attribute significant emissions to China (0.93 ± 0.15 Gg yr–1 in 2015 and 1.53 ± 0.20 Gg yr–1 in 2021) and South Korea (0.38 ± 0.07 Gg yr–1 to 0.65 ± 0.10 Gg yr–1). East Asia contributes around 73% of the global NF3 emission increase from 2015 to 2021: approximately 41% of the increase is from emissions from China (with Taiwan included), 19% from South Korea, and 13% from Japan. For Japan, which is the only one of these three countries to submit annual NF3 emissions to UNFCCC, our bottom-up and top-down estimates are higher than reported. With increasing demand for electronics, especially flat panel displays, emissions are expected to further increase in the future.
2024
Multi-Scale Soil Salinization Dynamics From Global to Pore Scale: A Review
Soil salinization refers to the accumulation of water-soluble salts in the upper part of the soil profile. Excessive levels of soil salinity affects crop production, soil health, and ecosystem functioning. This phenomenon threatens agriculture, food security, soil stability, and fertility leading to land degradation and loss of essential soil ecosystem services that are fundamental to sustaining life. In this review, we synthesize recent advances in soil salinization at various spatial and temporal scales, ranging from global to core, pore, and molecular scales, offering new insights and presenting our perspective on potential future research directions to address key challenges and open questions related to soil salinization. Globally, we identify significant challenges in understanding soil salinity, which are (a) the considerable uncertainty in estimating the total area of salt-affected soils, (b) geographical bias in ground-based measurements of soil salinity, and (c) lack of information and data detailing secondary salinization processes, both in dry- and wetlands, particularly concerning responses to climate change. At the core scale, the impact of salt precipitation with evolving porous structure on the evaporative fluxes from porous media is not fully understood. This knowledge is crucial for accurately predicting soil water loss due to evaporation. Additionally, the effects of transport properties of porous media, such as mixed wettability conditions, on the saline water evaporation and the resulting salt precipitation patterns remain unclear. Furthermore, effective continuum equations must be developed to accurately represent experimental data and pore-scale numerical simulations.
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
2024
2024
2024
Atmospheric Supply of Nitrogen, Cadmium, Mercury and B(a)P to the Baltic Sea in 2022
Norwegian Meteorological Institute
2024
NILU performed a test campaign for measurements of CF4 and C2F6 for stack emissions at Alcoa Mosjøen Smelter. Time-integrated samples were taken with evacuated canisters combined with low-flow restrictors for continuous sampling periods as long as 4 weeks. The samples were analyzed at NILU with a Medusa preconcentration method combined with GC-MS SIM. As a main conclusion, time integrated sampling together with Medusa GC-MS methodology is a very precise alternative to the traditional attempts to quantify PFC-emission.
NILU
2024
Can plastic related chemicals be indicators of plastic ingestion in an Arctic seabird?
For decades, the northern fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis) has been found to ingest and accumulate high loads of plastic due to its feeding ecology and digestive tract morphology. Plastic ingestion can lead to both physical and toxicological effects as ingested plastics can be a pathway for hazardous chemicals into seabirds' tissues. Many of these contaminants are ubiquitous in the environment and the contribution of plastic ingestion to the uptake of those contaminants in seabirds’ tissues is poorly known. In this study we aimed at quantifying several plastic-related chemicals (PRCs) -PBDE209, several dechloranes and several phthalate metabolites- and assessing their relationship with plastic burdens (both mass and number) to further investigate their potential use as proxies for plastic ingestion. Blood samples from fulmar fledglings and liver samples from both fledgling and non-fledgling fulmars were collected for PRC quantification. PBDE209 and dechloranes were quantified in 39 and 33 livers, respectively while phthalates were quantified in plasma. Plastic ingestion in these birds has been investigated previously and showed a higher prevalence in fledglings. PBDE209 was detected in 28.2 % of the liver samples. Dechlorane 602 was detected in all samples while Dechloranes 601 and 604 were not detected in any sample. Dechlorane 603 was detected in 11 individuals (33%). Phthalates were detected in one third of the analysed blood samples. Overall, no significant positive correlation was found between plastic burdens and PRC concentrations. However, a significant positive relationship between PBDE209 and plastic number was found in fledglings, although likely driven by one outlier. Our study shows the complexity of PRC exposure, the timeline of plastic ingestion and subsequent uptake of PRCs into the tissues in birds, the additional exposure of these chemicals via their prey, even in a species ingesting high loads of plastic.
Elsevier
2024