Thermal imaging video shows air pollution danger zones

Posted on October 5, 2016 by Respro® UK Ltd

With the World Health Organisation revealing this week that air pollution kills 16,000 Britons a year, one of the UK’s leading academics on air quality is developing thermal – or infrared – technology that enables viewers to physically see pollution and could help to save lives.

Martin Williams, Professor of Air Quality at Kings College London, has created a video with thermal imaging experts, FLIR Systems, to show how everyday transport contributes to air pollution. He says: “By using infrared technology you can physically see pollutants and how they spread from the source into the air. Technologies like this, that physically show pollution – whether fumes from a car, aeroplane or train – will help enormously in getting the message across.”

With young children so vulnerable to pollution, Professor Williams says one of the major concerns centres around prams and push chairs being so close to vehicle exhaust level: “If parents could see what it looks like pushing their child through a band of raw pollution, they’d take preventive action.”

While the World Health Organisation and other environmental groups are using cutting-edge technology to track and monitor air pollution, the hope is that the use of infrared technology in this way will have more impact when it comes to raising awareness about the harmful effects of air pollution and reducing its impact.

As Chris Brown from FLIR Systems said: “Unfortunately, we are only born with five senses! And what infrared lets us to do is optimise that sixth sense – allowing us to see air pollution before and while it’s happening.”

To see the video click here.

Thermal image of air pollution from street traffic in London courtesy of FLIR Systems.

Source: Thermal imaging video shows air pollution danger zones | EAEM

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Volcano emissions linked to increases in asthma attacks

Posted on October 4, 2016 by Respro® UK Ltd

A new study from the active volcano Kīlauea, which is on the big island of Hawaii, reports that people — especially children — with asthma are at greater risk of having serious asthma attacks if they live in a community with high levels of the volcanic gas sulfur dioxide (SO2) than if they live upwind of the volcano.

Volcanoes can emit SO2 and other airborne chemicals while erupting, and human sources of SO2, like coal plants, are reputed triggers of asthma attacks. Nurse epidemiologist Bernadette Mae Longo, from the University of Nevada, Reno, began to question whether volcanic sulfurous air pollution, known as “vog,” was linked to human health after having conversations with local health care professions and conducting door-to-door surveys near Kīlauea.

“As a nurse, it touched my heart, because I knew as I read a medical record that this was a real person struggling. Or maybe this was a family with a baby or child that had asthma, and it is very frightening when an asthma attack occurs,” says Longo, who will speak on the subject on Tuesday, 27 Sept., at the meeting of the Geological Society of America in Denver, Colorado. “The overriding question was: ‘is all the volcanic air pollution making people sick?’ ”

SO2 is considered a “non-threshold” gas, meaning that the amount of SO2 needed to trigger an asthma attack varies person to person. People without asthma or other respiratory illnesses can breath in a larger amount of SO2 before experiencing breathing problems.

After confirming that communities downwind of Kīlauea were being exposed to volcanic SO2, Longo initiated a seven-year study that ran from 2004 to 2010. She monitored atmospheric SO2 levels and documented the number of people who visited either emergency rooms or local clinics in need of immediate medical treatment for an asthma attack. She compared communities living downwind of the volcano, and thereby exposed to SO2 emissions, to communities upwind of the volcano. Longo ended up recording information from more than 1,000 visits from patients, who ranged in age from three months old to more than 89 years.

The risk of an asthmatic experiencing a serious asthma attack was three times higher for people living downwind of the volcano compared to populations living upwind of the volcano, once the data was corrected for age and gender. When she considered age, Longo found that the children downwind of Kīlauea were at much higher risk of an attack than the unexposed children.

Specifically, Longo saw that the risk of asthma attacks increased with in-town SO2 concentrations and not the amount of emissions gushing from the volcano. Furthermore, communities closer to the vents had a higher risk of asthma attacks compared to communities farther downwind.

At the beginning of the study, the East Rift Zone of Kīlauea was continuously erupting on a small scale, but the Halemaumau Crater of Kīlauea explosively erupted in 2008, causing SO2emissions to skyrocket. Even now, downwind communities still exceed EPA recommendations for SO2 exposure a few times during the week, according to Longo.

“It allowed for a natural experiment of low vog exposure and high vog exposure,” says Longo. “We found that there was already significant risk before the summit eruption, but the magnitude of risk increased after the eruption.”

Overall, vog exposure appears to be hazardous to the health of those with asthma, because every asthma attack can further damage a patient’s lungs. Longo suggests geologists, public health care workers, and clinicians can work collaboratively to write guidelines that would allow clinicians to provide the best evidence-based, culturally sensitive care for the vulnerable populations living on volcanoes. In addition, Longo says scientists need to continue researching the effects of vog pollution on human health, not only on SO2, but also on the other gases and particulates in vog.

“We can’t shut the volcano off, and if we don’t document that there is this problem, there may not be the initiative to do something to try and help these populations,” says Longo.

Source: Volcano emissions linked to increases in asthma attacks — ScienceDaily

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Dust Pollution Reaches Dangerous Levels in Several Iranian Provinces

Posted on October 4, 2016 by Respro® UK Ltd

The air pollution caused by haze and particles in Iran’s western, southwestern, central, and southeastern provinces has reached hazardous levels.

Air conditions are alarming in the southeastern Iranian province of Sistan and Baluchestan as its air pollution levels have risen to 9 times the limits.

Air condition in the country’s southwestern province of Khuzestan has been also classified as unhealthy where air pollution has exceeded safe limits set by the World Health Organization (WHO).

In central and western Iran, Isfahan and Kermanshah are among the most polluted provinces.

Haze is also expected to cover other provinces of the country, including Tehran.

Iranian residents in the western and southwestern provinces that border Iraq are facing a growing trend in the influx of fine particles, which are generated by drought-hit marshlands in neighboring countries.

The disruptive dust storms have pushed pollution in those border areas to alarming levels, raising health concerns.

The particles, carried by winds, can penetrate the lungs and enter the bloodstream, causing serious diseases such as lung cancer, asthma and heart problems.

Source: Tasnim News Agency – Dust Pollution Reaches Dangerous Levels in Several Iranian Provinces

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Beijing on pollution alert as smog season sets in

Posted on October 3, 2016 by Respro® UK Ltd

Beijing was put on yellow smog alert on Sunday, imposing restrictions on building and cooking outdoors.

The Air Quality Index in Beijing stood at between 200 and 300 out of 500 on Saturday and Sunday, meaning “very unhealthy”.

Forecasters said the pollution would continue on Monday and be dispersed by a cold snap on Tuesday. Smog had also affected Tianjin, Hebei and Shaanxi, the National Meteorological Centre said.

China has a four-tier system for air pollution, with red being the most serious, followed by orange, yellow and blue. Under the yellow warning, barbecues, work at construction sites and the burning of straw by farmers are not allowed.

Children, the elderly and people with respiratory or cardiovascular diseases are advised to stay indoors and people are advised to take public transport.

Environmental Protection Minister Chen Jining held an emergency meeting on Sunday to address the issue. Experts at the meeting said pollutants were concentrated because of weather conditions, Caixin reported.

Wang Zifa, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was quoted as saying that northern China would face more serious air pollution in autumn and winter this year.

He said the impact of El Nino and temperature inversions would make it difficult for pollutants to be dispersed.

The environmental ministry said on Thursday that air quality in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region had improved in the first eight months of this year from the same time in 2015, but critics said more needed to be done to clean up the air.

Decades of economic development on the mainland has spawned massive pollution.

On Thursday, a Dutch inventor opened what he calls the world’s largest air purifier in Beijing. The seven-metre Smog Free Tower, part of a project started by artist and innovator Daan Roosegaarde, is said to capture 75 per cent of smog particles that have diameters of 2.5 microns and 10 microns, and release clean air around the structure.

Some Beijing residents said they would like to see more such towers to raise awareness of pollution in Beijing, but others questioned whether the effectiveness of the tower was backed by scientific research.

Source: Beijing on pollution alert as smog season sets in | South China Morning Post

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Air pollution could be to blame for hundreds of traffic accidents, warn researchers 

Posted on October 3, 2016 by Respro® UK Ltd

Air pollution could be responsible for hundreds of car accidents a year, according to the London School of  Economics.

A study looking a five years of data showed that when levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) rise just one microgramme per cubic metre, the number of collisions rises by two per cent.

Although it might seem that effect could be explained by more traffic on the roads, and therefore more pollution and more accidents, the researchers found that the increase remained even when adjusting for the extra trafficInstead, they believe that the toxic air impairs driver fitness, while watery eyes and an itchy nose could also be distracting for motorists.

A recent study found that air pollution inside a car can be more than double that on the outside because the NO2 builds up in a small space.

Lead researcher Lutz Sager of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the LSE said: “Although it has already been shown that air pollution adversely affects human health and the ability to carry out mental tasks, this is the first published study that assesses the impact on road safety.

“The analysis identifies a causal effect of air pollution on road accidents, but I can only speculate about the cause of the link.

“My main theory is that air pollution impairs drivers’ fitness. However, other explanations are possible such as air pollution causing physical distractions, perhaps an itching nose, or limiting visibility.”

Air pollution can result from many different toxins, including carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, small particulate matter and ozone. But it was NO2 which was found to have the biggest impact.

Mr Sager, a postdoctoral candidate, divided the UK into a grid of 32 areas each covering about 4784 square miles (7700 sq km) and mapped accidents to the level of air pollution between 2009 and 2014 provided by the Department for the Environment (Defra)

He found a rise in the concentration of nitrogen dioxide of just one microgramme per cubic metre above the daily average is sufficient to increase the average number of accidents each day by two per cent, with the biggest effect occurring in cities.

Mr Sager calculated that in the area containing west London, which suffers from some of the highest levels of air pollution, a cut of about 30 per cent in the concentration of NO2 could reduce the number of road accidents every day by almost 5 per cent.

Levels of NO2 in polluted areas of London can reach beyond 97 microgrammes per cubic metre on average.

There are around 150,000 collisions in which someone is injured in Britain every year so preventing just two per cent of crashes could avert thousands of accidents.

Mr Sager added: “Whatever the exact mechanisms responsible, the robust finding of a significant effect of air quality on road safety is important given the high cost of road traffic accidents through damage to vehicles and deaths and injuries to people every day.

“Although this analysis has used data for the United Kingdom, I think my findings are relevant to other parts of the world. These additional costs from traffic accidents strengthen the case for reducing air pollution, particularly in congested cities.

“My analysis suggests that the causal effect of air pollution on road traffic accidents measured in this study more likely stems from nitrogen dioxide or other pollutant gases rather than particulate matter.”

However other experts were more sceptical about the link between air pollution and accidents.

AA president Edmund King said: “If you think about areas which are high in air pollution they are a lot busier, with taxis and buses and lorries and where you have a greater mix of traffic you tend to have more accidents.

“It would be hard to tease apart whether a crash is caused by a driver wiping his eyes because of pollution or the type of traffic which is to blame.

“If you look at Mumbai and New Delhi where you have some of the worst air pollution, yes you have far more accidents, but it is also far more chaotic.

“So I think this research may be far-fetched as I think it would be very difficult to prove that a driver’s fitness is impaired by pollution.”

The results of the study are published today as a working paper, and will be submitted for peer review in the coming weeks.

Source: Air pollution could be to blame for hundreds of traffic accidents, warn researchers 

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Air pollution from Icelandic volcanoes

Posted on October 1, 2016 by Respro® UK Ltd

In September 2014, a huge volcanic eruption in Iceland emitted up to nine times as much sulphur dioxide per day as all European industry combined. Anja Schmidt and Claire Witham explore what this did to air quality across Europe.

In the early hours of 31 August 2014 a truly spectacular eruption began at the Holuhraun lava field in Iceland, 45km away from the Bárðarbunga volcano. Compared to the ash-producing 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption, the Holuhraun eruption was a rather different beast, producing very little volcanic ash but lots of lava and toxic volcanic gases that were detected at air quality monitoring stations as far away as Austria.

Events like Holuhraun are known as effusive eruptions, and specifically as fissure eruptions. The biggest of these produce enough lava to fill up to 100,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools per day for months to years. These big eruptions occur on average every 200 to 500 years, whereas smaller-volume fissure eruptions like Holuhraun occur every 40-50 years.

Less ash, more gas.

During its first month, the eruption at Holuhraun was extremely powerful, spewing fountains of lava up to 150 metres high along a 1·5km long crack in the Earth’s crust (putting the ‘fissure’ in ‘fissure eruption’). By the time the eruption had ended six months later, it had produced about 1·5km3 of lava, covering an area of around 86km2 – about 50 times the area of Regents Park in London, or equivalent to covering Regents Park in 1km of lava.

It quickly became clear that the eruption was emitting truly staggering amounts of sulphur dioxide (SO2) into the lower parts of the atmosphere. SO2 is a toxic gas that is converted to sulphuric acid aerosol particles. Both of these can affect air quality, causing respiratory problems for people exposed to them, particularly those who already have asthma or other lung difficulties; sulphuric acid can also lead to acid rain. Due to the remoteness of the eruption site and the weather conditions in Iceland continuous ground-based monitoring and measurement of SO2 was very challenging.

This is where satellite observations of the volcanic SO2 plume came to the rescue. Our team analysed satellite data and combined it with computer modelling using the Met Office’s NAME model. This let us track and compare the dispersion of the volcanic gas cloud, as well as estimate how much SO2 was emitted. We found that at its most powerful the eruption emitted about 120 kilotons of SO2 per day – eight times more than the total from all man-made sources in Europe. During September 2014, Holuhraun emitted a total of 2·0±0·6 million tons of SO2, making it the largest volcanic sulphur pollution event in Iceland for more than 200 years. Its bigger sister, the Laki eruption, took place in 1783-1784AD and produced, over eight months, an order of magnitude more lava and about 60 times more SO2 than Holuhraun did in 2014.

Detecting and monitoring volcanic pollutants

Over the course of the eruption, air quality monitoring stations in Iceland recorded unprecedented levels of SO2, often significantly exceeding the current 10-minute mean air quality standard set by the World Health Organization (WHO) to protect public health. Yet the pollution was not confined to Iceland: we found the gas was transported over very large distances and detected by air quality monitoring stations up to 2750km away from Iceland.

Away from Iceland there was no risk of long-term detrimental health effects because exposure to volcanic pollutants was brief. For instance, on 6 September 2014, volcanic pollution reached Ireland, where monitoring stations recorded short-lived (up to 24 hours) spikes in surface SO2 concentrations of just above 500μg/m3. Air pollution regulations introduced in the 1980s mean that SO2 levels from industrial emissions are very low nowadays, so the concentrations recorded on 6 September 2014 were particularly unusual.

Air quality monitoring stations across Europe were essential in detecting and characterising the pollution resulting from this eruption. These observations and our model simulations show that volcanic pollution from Icelandic fissure eruptions can easily reach Northern Europe and degrade air quality temporarily. Right now the number of SO2monitoring stations across Europe is steadily declining. SO2 concentrations are usually very low as a result of new laws aimed at reducing man-made emissions since the 1980s, so constant monitoring doesn’t seem as important as it once did. We think existing air quality monitoring stations ought to be retained, or even extended to monitor volcanic pollutants from future eruptions in Iceland. This would help us characterise and mitigate volcanic gas and aerosol particle hazards, which could be severe in the event of a large-magnitude Icelandic eruption like a repeat of the Laki eruption. In a 2011 study, we calculated that a future Laki-type eruption could degrade air quality across Europe for several weeks potentially resulting in more than 100,000 premature deaths across the continent.

The next eruption…

Every eruption is different, and those of Holuhraun and Eyjafjallajökull have shown that future Icelandic eruptions will pose new hazards and challenges for science and society. With each event, we learn more about the volcanic processes involved and broaden our understanding of how to best use observations and computer models to understand these hazards and inform decision makers.

We cannot predict the next eruption, but recent activity proves that in Europe we should prepare for the impacts of not only volcanic ash but also volcanic gases and airborne particles. Work on this source of air pollution has informed UK Government policy and led to volcanic gas and airborne particle hazards being recognised alongside more established volcanic ash hazards. As a result there are now contingency plans in the event of a future eruption, which will make society better-prepared and more resilient. This in turn is expected to minimise disruption, costs and potentially save lives.

Source: NERC – Air pollution from Icelandic volcanoes

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South Asia’s pollution spreads to Tibet 

Posted on September 29, 2016 by Respro® UK Ltd

New research shows how haze from Nepal and India travels over the Himalayas, causing pollution spikes on northern slopes of Everest and central Tibet.

In the past, the remoteness and high elevation of the Himalayas and Tibetan plateau was believed to protect the vast expanse of land from the chronic pollution that haunts the densely populated regions of China and South Asia. It was thought that the world’s highest mountain range would act as a barrier to stop pollution from reaching the higher glaciated peaks.

But new research from scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences show pollution is spreading over the world’s highest mountain range and across central Tibet. The team recorded major spikes in pollution this April on the northern slopes of Everest, and traced the source back to Nepal and northern India.

Brown clouds blight South Asia

Every year, particularly during the dry winter season from October until May, the heavily populated Indo-Gangetic Plain in South Asia is plagued by severe air pollution. In recent years, people in India and Nepal, in particular, have suffered from periods of suffocating air pollution, known scientifically as Atmospheric Brown Cloud (ABCs).

In 2015 India’s air pollution levels overtook China’s. According to an analysis by Greenpeace of NASA satellite data, the average particulate matter exposure in India exceeded that of China’s, and more importantly China’s exposure fell 15 per cent between 2014 and 2015, while India’s was increasing by 2 per cent per year.

Pollution is worse in the winter because there is no rain to wash pollutants from the air. In Kathmandu, for example, days with clear views of the Himalayas become very rare due to the heavy brown clouds shrouding the valley. Emissions from burning fossil fuels and biomass for cooking and heating build up during the dry season when brown clouds extend from the Indian Ocean to the Himalayan ridge.

The soot, sulphates and other harmful aerosols in Atmospheric Brown Clouds pose a major threat to the water and food security of Asia, according to a 2008 study by UNEP. The soot settles on the glaciers, darkening the snow and increasing absorption of energy. This speeds up the melting of glaciers and snow pack in the Hindu Kush-Himalayas – which provide water for million of people living downstream.

Pollutants also absorb the sun and heat the atmosphere and so are thought to be as “important as greenhouse gas warming in accounting for the anomalously large warming trend observed in the elevated regions,” states the report.

With the westerlies blowing across the Indo Gangetic plain, pollutants spread across Nepal and climb up valleys and slopes of the Himalayan ranges.

Ice-core samples taken from both the southern and northern slopes of the Himalayas have also revealed rising soot concentrations during times of rapid industrialization in recent decades, indicating pollution could travel over the high mountain range.

Latest evidence

In recent years Chinese scientists have found more definitive evidence that the Himalayas do not block the passage of pollution into the central region of the Tibetan plateau. Thanks to observations at various observatory stations on the northern slopes of the Himalayas since 2009, they have found a similar concentration and type of pollutants on both the south and north sides of Mount Everest.

Professor Kang Shichang, director of the State Key Laboratory of Cryosphere Science at CAS, has been monitoring the atmosphere of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau for over 15 years.

In April this year, Kang observed a sudden peaking of black carbon at the observation site on the Qomolangma (Mount Everest) Station, 4,276 metres above sea level on the northern foothills of Mount Everest.

Typically the Everest station records black carbon concentrations of about 0.3 microgrammes per cubic metre, but on April 9-18, levels spiked to 1.2-2.4 microgrammes per cubic metre. While severe for this unpopulated area, this level of black carbon is still relatively low for China; in the country’s urban areas, black carbon concentrations tend to range between 6-11 microgrammes per cubic metre, according to a 2012 report by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

The extremely high levels of black carbon in atmosphere during this period is far beyond the background figure on Everest and thus could be listed as a “pollution event,” said Kang.

Using satellite images and computer simulations of the air circulation system based on meteorological data, Kang and his research team concluded that 97 per cent of the air clusters passing through the station during that period came from northern India and the neighbouring area in Nepal. “The transport of the air masses passed most parts of Nepal before finally climbing over the Himalayas to reach the northern slopes of Mount Everest,” states the analysis from Kang’s team.

The team traced the pollution to Nepal as the major source, followed by northern India using images from the MODIS instrument on NASA’s Aqua satellite. “An apparent rise of Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD), particularly fine aerosol particles, at the Everest station occurred, which indicated the increasing of fine particles from burned biomass [such as from cooking stoves fed by wood or crops, or from forest fires],” the report stated.

During April, when the spike in pollution on Everest was recorded, Nepal experienced a region-wide heavy haze from forest fires after prolonged drought. Both NASA satellites and local anecdotal evidence show widespread forest fires and the burning of agricultural crops from 7 April through the following week in Nepal.

Widespread effect

Transboundary air pollution does not only affect the area around Everest. In March 2009, the Namco station in central Tibet, around 800 kilometres to the northeast of the Everest station, recorded a sudden rise of AOD in March 2009 to 0.42 (AOD varied between 0.428 and 0.550 for China’s most polluted urban region in the neighbourhood area of Beijing during 2000-2013). This was a huge spike compared to the low base level of 0.029 AOD.

The results and analysis of Kang’s team were published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics in mid-2015. The research detailed “how polluted air masses from atmospheric brown cloud (ABC) over South Asia reach the Tibetan Plateau within a few days,” driven by a combination of long distance and local meteorological processes.

Every year before in the months before the monsoon, from March until May, there is a high chance of severe transboundary air pollution, Kang said, based on almost a decade of observations.

This story was published with permission from The Third Pole. Read the full story.

 

Source: South Asia’s pollution spreads to Tibet | News | Eco-Business | Asia Pacific

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Polluted air affects 92% of global population, says WHO 

Posted on September 28, 2016 by Respro® UK Ltd

Nine out of 10 people on the planet breathe polluted air, even outdoors, the World Health Organisation said.

Some 92% of the population live in places where air pollution exceeds WHO limits, which can contribute to lung cancer, heart disease, and strokes.

The south-east Asia and western Pacific regions account for nearly two out of every three such deaths, it said, with poorer countries “getting worse”.

Around three million deaths every year are linked to outdoor air pollution.

When “indoor” air pollution – which includes pollutants like wood smoke and cooking fires – is added, air pollution is linked to one in every nine deaths worldwide, the WHO said.

The air quality model used in the data measures the smallest particles, less than 2.5 micrometres across – which can enter the bloodstream and reach the brain.

Country-by-country data showed that Turkmenistan has the highest death rate connected to outdoor air pollution.

Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Egypt rounded out the top five.

“Rich countries are getting much better in improving the quality of the air,” Dr Carlos Dora from the WHO told the Associated Press.

“Poorer countries are getting worse. That is the overall trend.”

However, he said, North America is doing better than Europe, mostly because Europe depends more on diesel fuel and farming practices that create ammonia and methane.

China, the country with the sixth-highest death rate linked to air pollution, is relatively wealthy, but is plagued by smog in its cities and polluted air from industrial sources.

The WHO pointed to sustainable transport, waste management, and renewable energies as possible ways to reduce air pollution.

It said its latest data represented the most detailed study it has ever released. The analysis combined satellite measurements and more than 3,000 monitoring stations on the ground with air transport models.

The report is based on 2012 figures, which are the most recent available.

Source: Polluted air affects 92% of global population, says WHO – BBC News

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