scholarly journals Black Carbon and Other Air Pollutants in Italian Ports and Coastal Areas: Problems, Solutions and Implications for Policies

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (23) ◽  
pp. 8544
Author(s):  
Thomas L. Brewer
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Black Carbon ◽  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Atmospheric Chemistry ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Air Pollutants ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Coastal Areas ◽  
Maritime Shipping

Ships’ emissions of air pollutants pose problems for local and regional public health and agricultural production, as well as global climate change. The Italian government’s endorsement in 2019 of the creation of a Mediterranean Emission Control Area is a reflection of increasing concern about the emissions. Also, ongoing developments in the International Maritime Organization and in the European Union add to the Italian government’s maritime shipping agenda and increase its complexity and uncertainty. In that context, this review paper addresses two central questions: What are the consequences for human health and agricultural production of ships’ emissions in Italian ports and coastal areas? How can their emissions be reduced? The approach to these questions is inter-disciplinary. It applies the results of studies in atmospheric chemistry and physics; maritime shipping engineering; public health; agriculture; economics; and international law and policymaking to assess current and prospective policy issues in Italy. The principal conclusions are that: (1) Black carbon emissions are threats to human health and agricultural production in Italy, as well as to the global climate. (2) It is important that black carbon emissions receive more serious attention in policymaking processes in order to reflect the significant analytic progress that has been made in terms of understanding the problems it poses and the technological and policy solutions. (3) There are cost-effective, emission-reducing measures that are readily available, as well as other measures needing more time before full-scale implementation. (4) Although existing multi-level governance systems pose complex analytic and policymaking challenges, they also offer opportunities to institute new policies with significant short-term and long-term co-benefits from reductions in emissions.

scholarly journals A Risk Assessment for Ozone Regulation Based on Statistical Rollback

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 2388
Author(s):  
Yongku Kim ◽  
Jeongjin Lee
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Air Pollutants ◽  
Hierarchical Bayesian Models ◽  
Health It ◽  
Matching Method ◽  
Regulatory Standards ◽  
Ozone Regulation ◽  
Ozone Levels

In environmental studies, it is important to assess how regulatory standards for air pollutants affect public health. High ozone levels contribute to harmful air pollutants. The EPA regulates ozone levels by setting ozone standards to protect public health. It is thus crucial to assess how various regulatory ozone standards affect non-accidental mortality related to respiratory deaths during the ozone season. The original rollback approach provides an adjusted ozone process under a new regulation scenario in a deterministic fashion. Herein, we consider a statistical rollback approach to allow for uncertainty in the rollback procedure by adopting the quantile matching method so that it provides flexible rollback sets. Hierarchical Bayesian models are used to predict the potential effects of different ozone standards on human health. We apply the method to epidemiologic data.

Trends in global warming and human health impacts related to Brazilian sugarcane ethanol production considering black carbon emissions

2013 ◽  
Vol 104 ◽  
pp. 576-582 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcelo Galdos ◽  
Otávio Cavalett ◽  
Joaquim E.A. Seabra ◽  
Luiz Augusto Horta Nogueira ◽  
Antonio Bonomi
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Ethanol Production ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Black Carbon ◽  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Health Impacts ◽  
Human Health Impacts

Black carbon emission reduction strategies in healthcare industry for effective global climate change management

2016 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 416-425 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emilia Mmbando Raila ◽  
David O Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Black Carbon ◽  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Waste Incineration ◽  
Policy Formulation ◽  
Quantitative Evidence ◽  
Healthcare Waste ◽  
New Research

Climate change remains one of the biggest threats to life on earth to date with black carbon (BC) emissions or smoke being the strongest cause after carbon dioxide (CO2). Surprisingly, scientific evidence about black carbon emissions reduction in healthcare settings is sparse. This paper presents new research findings on the reduction of black carbon emissions from an observational study conducted at the UN Peacekeeping Operations (MINUSTAH) in Haiti in 2014. Researchers observed 20 incineration cycles, 30 minutes for each cycle of plastic and cardboard sharps healthcare waste (HCW) containers ranged from 3 to 14.6 kg. The primary aim was to determine if black carbon emissions from healthcare waste incineration can be lowered by mainstreaming the use of cardboard sharps healthcare waste containers instead of plastic sharps healthcare waste containers. Similarly, the study looks into whether burning temperature was associated with the smoke levels for each case or not. Independent samples t-tests demonstrated significantly lower black carbon emissions during the incineration of cardboard sharps containers (6.81 ± 4.79% smoke) than in plastic containers (17.77 ± 8.38% smoke); a statistically significant increase of 10.96% smoke (95% Confidence Interval ( CI) [4.4 to 17.5% smoke], p = 0.003). Correspondingly, lower bottom burner temperatures occurred during the incineration of cardboard sharps containers than in plastic (95% Cl [16 to 126°C], p = 0.014). Finally, we expect the application of the new quantitative evidence to form the basis for policy formulation, mainstream the use of cardboard sharps containers and opt for non-incineration disposal technologies as urgent steps for going green in healthcare waste management.

scholarly journals What can we learn about ship emission inventories from measurements of air pollutants over the Mediterranean Sea?

2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 7155-7211 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Marmer ◽  
F. Dentener ◽  
J. v. Aardenne ◽  
F. Cavalli ◽  
E. Vignati ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Black Carbon ◽  
Atmospheric Chemistry ◽  
Air Pollutants ◽  
Transport Model ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Air Pollutant ◽  
Emission Inventories ◽  
Atmospheric Measurements ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Ship Emission

Abstract. Ship emission estimates diverge widely for all chemical compounds for several reasons: use of different methodologies (bottom-up or top-down), activity data and emission factors can easily result in a difference from a factor of 1.5 to two orders of magnitude. Despite these large discrepancies in existing ship emission inventories for air pollutants very little has been done to evaluate their consistency with atmospheric measurements at open sea. Combining three sets of observational data – ozone and black carbon measurements sampled at three coastal sites and on board of a Mediterranean cruise ship, as well as satellite observations of atmospheric NO2 column concentration over the same area – we assess the accuracy of the three most commonly used ship emission inventories, EDGAR FT (Olivier et al., 2005), emissions described by Eyring et al. (2005) and emissions reported by EMEP (Vestreng et al., 2007). Our tool is a global atmospheric chemistry transport model which simulates the chemical state of the Mediterranean atmosphere applying different ship emission inventories. The simulated contributions of ships to air pollutant levels in the Mediterranean atmosphere are significant but strongly depend on the inventory applied. Close to the major shipping routes relative contributions vary from 10 to 50% for black carbon and from 2 to 12% for ozone in the surface layer, as well as from 5 to 20% for nitrogen dioxide atmospheric column burden. The relative contributions are still significant over the North African coast, but less so over the South European coast. The observations poorly constrain the ship emission inventories in the Eastern Mediterranean where the influence of uncertain land based emissions, the model transport and wet deposition are at least as important as the signal from ships. In the Western Mediterranean, the regional EMEP emission inventory gives the best match with most measurements, followed by Eyring for NO2 and ozone and by EDGAR for black carbon. Given the uncertainty of the measurements and the model, each of the three emission inventories could actually be right, implying that large uncertainties in ship emissions need to be considered for future scenario analysis.

scholarly journals Implication of Secondary Atmospheric Pollutants in the Air Quality: A Case-Study for Ozone

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Galán Madruga
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Air Quality ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Tropospheric Ozone ◽  
Air Pollutants ◽  
Ground Level ◽  
Atmospheric Pollutants ◽  
Emission Sources ◽  
Rural Environments ◽  
Harmful Effects

Air quality and Public Health are concepts linked to each other. Within the frame of Public Health, a wide range of external factors, derived from rising wastes towards all environmental compartments, may generate harmful effects on human health. In particular, the release of polluting compounds into the ambient air coming from emission sources is a paramount concern, given that atmospheric pollution is considered the most significant environmental risk for human beings. In this context, while this chapter to provide an overview of the most critical air pollutants that can depict air quality status in terms of exposure, potential effects, emission sources, and types of pollutants, the principal purpose is focused on secondary atmospheric pollutants, emphasizing to tropospheric ozone as a significant pollutant within this group. In this sense, aspects such as the atmospheric ozone chemistry responsible for its formation and its spatial distribution into vast territories, including urban, suburban, and rural environments, were conveniently explained. Based on displayed evidence, primaries air pollutants, mainly nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, and carbon monoxide, are responsible for the tropospheric ozone’s formation; therefore, reducing their levels could be translated into a decrease of ozone concentrations at the ground-level. Attending to the ozone distribution, the revealed findings lead to the next concentration gradient: higher ozone levels in rural, followed by suburban and urban sites, respectively. Finally, it can be concluded that the importance of tropospheric ozone within air quality lies in the possibility of producing harmful effects on human health and generating climate changes, either directly or indirectly.

scholarly journals The role of plume-scale processes in long-term impacts of aircraft emissions

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (9) ◽  
pp. 5697-5727
Author(s):  
Thibaud M. Fritz ◽  
Sebastian D. Eastham ◽  
Raymond L. Speth ◽  
Steven R. H. Barrett
Keyword(s):  
Black Carbon ◽  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Atmospheric Chemistry ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Chemical Mechanism ◽  
Ozone Production ◽  
Lagrangian Model ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Plume Model

Abstract. Emissions from aircraft engines contribute to atmospheric NOx, driving changes in both the climate and in surface air quality. Existing atmospheric models typically assume instant dilution of emissions into large-scale grid cells, neglecting non-linear, small-scale processes occurring in aircraft wakes. They also do not explicitly simulate the formation of ice crystals, which could drive local chemical processing. This assumption may lead to errors in estimates of aircraft-attributable ozone production, and in turn to biased estimates of aviation's current impacts on the atmosphere and the effect of future changes in emissions. This includes black carbon emissions, on which contrail ice forms. These emissions are expected to reduce as biofuel usage increases, but their chemical effects are not well captured by existing models. To address this problem, we develop a Lagrangian model that explicitly models the chemical and microphysical evolution of an aircraft plume. It includes a unified tropospheric–stratospheric chemical mechanism that incorporates heterogeneous chemistry on background and aircraft-induced aerosols. Microphysical processes are also simulated, including the formation, persistence, and chemical influence of contrails. The plume model is used to quantify how the long-term (24 h) atmospheric chemical response to an aircraft plume varies in response to different environmental conditions, engine characteristics, and fuel properties. We find that an instant-dilution model consistently overestimates ozone production compared to the plume model, up to a maximum error of ∼200 % at cruise altitudes. Instant dilution of emissions also underestimates the fraction of remaining NOx, although the magnitude and sign of the error vary with season, altitude, and latitude. We also quantify how changes in black carbon emissions affect plume behavior. Our results suggest that a 50 % reduction in black carbon emissions, as may be possible through blending with certain biofuels, may lead to thinner, shorter-lived contrails. For the cases that we modeled, these contrails sublimate ∼5 % to 15 % sooner and are 10 % to 22 % optically thinner. The conversion of emitted NOx to HNO3 and N2O5 falls by 16 % and 33 %, respectively, resulting in chemical feedbacks that are not resolved by instant-dilution approaches. The persistent discrepancies between results from the instant-dilution approach and from the aircraft plume model demonstrate that a parameterization of effective emission indices should be incorporated into 3-D atmospheric chemistry transport models.

scholarly journals Large scale changes in 20th century black carbon deposition to Antarctica

2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 27815-27831 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. M. Bisiaux ◽  
R. Edwards ◽  
J. R. McConnell ◽  
M. A. J. Curran ◽  
T. D. Van Ommen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Black Carbon ◽  
Southern Hemisphere ◽  
Atmospheric Chemistry ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Atmospheric Transport ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Ice Core ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽  
West Antarctic

Abstract. Refractory black carbon aerosols (rBC) emitted by biomass burning (fires) and fossil fuel combustion, affect global climate and atmospheric chemistry. In the Southern Hemisphere (SH), rBC is transported in the atmosphere from low latitudes to Antarctica and deposited to the polar ice sheet preserving a history of emissions and atmospheric transport. Here, we present two high-resolution Antarctic rBC ice core records drilled from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet divide and Law Dome on the periphery of the East Antarctic ice sheet. Separated by ~3500 km, the records span calendar years 1850–2001 and reflect the rBC distribution over the Indian and Pacific ocean sectors of the Southern Ocean. Highly correlated over the past 60 yr, the records show that coherent large-scale changes in SH rBC occurred at decadal to inter-annual time scales, notably in ENSO-like periodicities. Decadal trends in the records are similar to inventories of SH rBC emissions from grass fires and biofuels. The combined records suggest a large-scale reduction in rBC from 1950 to 1990 over the remote Southern Hemisphere.

Black Smoke in China and Its Climate Effects

2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
David G. Streets
Keyword(s):  
Human Health ◽  
Black Carbon ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Economic Cost ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Carbonaceous Particles ◽  
Black Smoke ◽  
Industrial Sectors ◽  
Transportation Sector ◽  
The Cost

The emission of fine carbonaceous particles in China is a serious threat to human health, ecological systems, and regional and global climate regimes. China is thought to release about 20 percent of the global black carbon through the combustion of coal and biofuels without adequate particle controls. The household and industrial sectors are mainly responsible, but the country's growing transportation sector is a concern for the future. The economic cost of damage from black carbon likely exceeds the cost of controlling emissions by several fold, but as yet such costs have not been quantified.

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