RESEARCH
NEWS
The EU Research team take a look at current events in the scientific news
maps air pollution Air pollution affects all of us in our everyday lives to varying degrees, as we inhale toxins and particles that could adversely affect our health. Statistics underline the scale of the issue, with air pollution estimated to be responsible for around 5.5 million premature deaths in 2015. The problem is particularly acute in cities, where around 80 percent of inhabitants are breathing air that is unsafe for humans. It’s hard to know which areas are worst affected though, whether you’re a local resident or a visitor. Global tech giant Google is now taking steps to provide more information to the citizens of the Californian city of Oakland, releasing a map showing air quality information in fine detail, enabling people to identify the worst affected areas and avoid them where possible. The information was collected using sensors on top of Google’s Street
View cars, with readings taken every 30 metres or so, from which researchers have been able to build a more detailed picture of air pollution levels across the city. This approach allowed researchers to achieve significantly greater spatial precision than previous techniques, which relied more on monitoring air quality from a single central point. This represents a significant step forward. “Air pollution varies very finely in space, and we can’t capture that variation with other existing measurement techniques,” said Joshua Apte, an Assistant Professor at the Cockrell School of Engineering and the lead author of a paper describing the results. “Using our approach and analysis techniques, we can now visualise air pollution with incredible detail. This kind of information could transform our understanding of the sources and impacts of air pollution.”
Research shows US vulnerable to ozone depletion The population of central US states could be exposed to harmful levels of UV radiation during the Summer months, a new study reveals. Research from Harvard University shows that the protective stratospheric ozone layer is liable to erosion during the Summer, as specific chemical reactions cause ozone depletion, leaving people at greater risk from the effects of UV radiation. Researchers know that the central US states have some particular characteristics that leave them vulnerable to ozone depletion during the Summer. The combination of the northerly flow of warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico, together with heating and convergence over the Great Plains, often leads to the injection of water vapour into the stratosphere. This means that the stratosphere over a number of US states, including Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska, is at higher risk of experencing certain chemical reactions that lead to ozone depletion. Stratospheric ozone concentrations are also vulnerable to temperature changes caused by storm systems over the Great Plains. With these storms expected to increase in both frequency and intensity, researchers are looking to understand how they are likely to affect the earth’s climate. “Thunderstorms that hydrate the stratosphere can have significant local and regional impacts on Earth’s radiation budget and climate,” said Cameron R. Homeyer of the University of Oaklahoma, a co-investigator on the paper. “This work demonstrates our increasing knowledge of such storms, using ground-based and airborne observations and evaluates their potential for depleting stratospheric ozone now and in the future. The results strongly motivate the need for increased meteorological and chemical observations of such storms.”
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