Phys.org August 20, 2024 Researchers at James Madison University investigated thunderstorm environments in two distinct geographic regions to assess the aerosol and thermodynamic environments surrounding thunderstorm initiation. 12-years of cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning flash data were used to reconstruct thunderstorms occurring in a 225 km radius centered on the Washington, D·C. and Kansas City Metropolitan Regions. A total of 196,836 and 310,209 thunderstorms were identified for Washington, D.C. and Kansas City, MO. Merging hourly meteorological and aerosol data with the thunderstorm event database they found that warm season thunderstorm environments in benign synoptic conditions were considerably different in thermodynamics, aerosol properties, […]
Tag Archives: Air pollution
Modern aircraft emit less carbon than older aircraft, but their contrails may do more environmental harm
Phys.org August 7, 2024 Contrails contribute over half of the positive radiative forcing from aviation, but the size of this warming effect is highly uncertain. In-situ observations have demonstrated an impact of aircraft and fuel type on contrail properties close to the aircraft, but there are few observational constraints at these longer timescales, despite these having a strong impact in high-resolution and global models. An international team of researchers (UK, Germany, USA – NASA Langley Research Center (VA)) found a relationship between aircraft type and contrail formation after investigating over 64 000 cases, with more efficient aircraft forming longer-lived satellite-detectable […]
It’s snowing plastic
EurekAlert March 17, 2021 The quantification of micro/nanoplastics in complex environmental matrices is still a major challenge, notably for soluble ones. Researchers in Canada coupled laboratory-built nanostructures (zinc oxide, titanium oxide and cobalt) to mass spectrometry techniques to quantify micro/nanoplastics in water and snow matrices at picogram levels without sample pre-treatment. In parallel, they developed a technique to quantify micro/nanoplastics based on nanostructured laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (NALDI-TOF-MS), at ultra-trace levels. The detection limit is ∼5 pg for ambient snow. Soluble polyethylene glycol and insoluble polyethylene fragments were observed and quantified in fresh falling snow. Complementary physicochemical studies of […]
Air pollution in New York City linked to wildfires hundreds of miles away
Science Daily January 22, 2020 Biomass burning, which occurs on a large-scale during wildfires and some controlled burns, is a major source of air pollutants that impact air quality, human health, and climate. Particulate matter with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5) has been shown to have particularly serious health effects when inhaled. Researchers at Yale University monitored the air quality at 5 sites in Cnnecticut and New York metropolitan area. In August of 2018, they observed two spikes in the presence of air pollutants found in the smoke of wildfires and controlled agricultural burning. Using data from […]