This is the first global assessment of nitrogen-related water pollution in river basins with a specification of the pollution by economic sector, and by crop for the agricultural sector. At a spatial resolution of 5 by 5 arc minute, we estimate anthropogenic nitrogen (N) loads to freshwater, calculate the resultant gray water footprints (GWFs), and relate the GWFs per river basin to runoff to c...

With the growing utilization and exploration of the ocean, anthropogenic noise increases significantly and gives rise to a new kind of pollution: noise pollution. In this review, the source and the characteristics of noise in the sea, the significance of sound to marine organisms, and the impacts of noise on marine organisms are summarized. In general, the studies about the impact of noise on m...

[1] Model studies typically estimate intercontinental influence on surface ozone by perturbing emissions from a source continent and diagnosing the ozone response in the receptor continent. Since the response to perturbations is nonlinear due to chemistry, conclusions drawn from different studies may depend on the magnitude of the applied perturbation. We investigate this issue for intercontine...

[1] The main uncertainty in anthropogenic forcing of the Earth’s climate stems from pollution aerosols, particularly their ‘‘indirect effect’’ whereby aerosols modify cloud properties. We develop a new methodology to derive a measurement-based estimate using almost exclusively information from an Earth radiation budget instrument (CERES) and a radiometer (MODIS). We derive a statistical relatio...

We summarize results of two independent studies on plastic pollution in the marine environment that overlap in time and space. One study evaluated the abundance of anthropogenic debris on 37 sandy beaches bordering the Salish Sea in Washington State while the other characterized plastic debris in surface waters of the Salish Sea and the Inside Passage to Skagway, Alaska. Both studies concluded ...

OBJECTIVE To model the possible air pollution-related health impact of the 2005 oil depot fire at Buncefield, near London, UK, under alternative meteorological conditions to those experienced at the time. DESIGN Atmospheric dispersion modelling of the smoke plume was conducted under the range of meteorological conditions occurring throughout 2005 assuming constant particle emission rates. Pop...

The regional atmospheric chemistry and climate model REMOTE has been used to conduct numerical simulations of the atmosphere during the catastrophic Indonesian fires of 1997. These simulations represent one possible scenario of the event, utilizing the RETRO wildland fire emission database. Emissions from the fires dominate the atmospheric concentrations of O(3), CO, NO(2), and SO(2) creating m...

The distribution of heavy metals (Pb, Zn, Cd and As) in sediments of the Pearl River Estuary was investigated. The spatial distribution of heavy metals displayed a decreasing pattern from the turbidity maxima to both upstream and downstream of the estuary, which suggested that suspended sediments played an important role in the trace metal distribution in the Pearl River Estuary. In addition, m...

Air pollution by fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone (O3) has increased strongly with industrialization and urbanization. We estimate the premature mortality rates and the years of human life lost (YLL) caused by anthropogenic PM2.5 and O3 in 2005 for epidemiological regions defined by the World Health Organization (WHO). This is based upon high-resolution global model calculations that r...

The molecular processes leading to formation of nanoparticles of blue haze over forested areas are highly complex and not fully understood. We show that the interaction between biogenic organic acids and sulfuric acid enhances nucleation and initial growth of those nanoparticles. With one cis-pinonic acid and three to five sulfuric acid molecules in the critical nucleus, the hydrophobic organic...