Global Air Pollution, From Above 545
neutron_p writes "Based on satellite observations, the high-resolution global atmospheric map of nitrogen dioxide pollution makes clear just how human activities impact air quality. I'm a bit surprised not to see that many red blobs above US and the strange one is on the east of Russia."
Take note (Score:5, Insightful)
That being said, China is still developing. Pollution should be a big concern for them, but it's an unfortunate fact of life for now. As their technology improves, the pollution levels should drop. With one caveat, that is:
Many modernized countries have sent their manufacturing to China. Thus placing restrictions on countries to reduce their emissions will do little good when we've already sent the real pollution over there. I'm not sure how we can respond to the situation, but it's important to pay attention to it.
The blob over Canada is actually a bit surprising, but I'm guessing that's related to the earlier article on the odd increases in pollution levels. I do have a thought on why North America sees less pollution than Europe, however. Since the North America has a massive amount of farmland and forest land, a good deal of the pollution is sapped up by these massive carbon sinks. This doesn't actually impact NO2 levels, but it does explain some of the pollution reduction.
FWIW, it seems that NO2 is primary produced by cars [airqualityontario.com]. Moving to the hydrogen vehicles of the future may help stop almost all NO2 production.
(P.S. I know slashdotters have a penchant for insulting people, but please try to keep your replies civil. I don't know everything, so correct me in a polite manner. Thank you.)
Re:Take note (Score:4, Informative)
but, not to take away from any of your statements at all, there is a gigantic underground coal fire in china that emits enough CO2 in one year to equal and surpass all exhaust from all cars in the US.
and that's just the coal fire burning coal, not counting all of the industrial development in china. it's no wonder things must be insane over there.
here's the first site i could find with info, there are better:
http://www.itc.nl/personal/coalfire/problem/china
i had to repost, my first post was to the wrong place.. woops.
Re:Take note (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:what are the facts though (Score:3, Insightful)
People keep pointing out that we didn't join Kyoto because the developing countries, ie China, didn't have strict limits. Thats true. Yes joi
Air Improves Despite Bush (Score:4, Interesting)
1) Air quality has improved because of the inertia from previous policies put in place by both major parties. Automotive polution controls and smokestack scrubbers, et al, have continued to work, and as old cars and factories go off line, the net effect is improvement. The current administration is taking credit for the effect of policies they'd like to scale back.
2) Bad fire seasons come in cycles, beyond the control of people. How bad is under their control, based on the nature of their forest management. The Forest and Park Services have been practicing 'controlled' burns for twenty years, doing what we used to let nature do at random. Unfortunately, random burns caused by weather and assholes have stayed ahead of the forest management budget. So...
The Bush Administration looked to have the private sector help out by clearing out dead and dying crap that really gets a fire going. At issue was that these policies were written by lobbists from the lumber industry. Sure, they'd be subject experts, but also motivated to take their best shot at harvesting the good with the bad.
The assumption among policy opponents is that the forest industry was just using this as a chance to cut without much oversight, since just about all western forests are stressed and a fire hazard due to prolonged drought, water diversions, and urban encroachment.
Re:Take note - Blame Clinton for Kyoto (Score:4, Funny)
Yep, that's definitely Bush's strong point.
Re:Take note - Blame Clinton for Kyoto (Score:3, Interesting)
However, President Bush, and a number of White House and Senate Republicans have cited a large number of other 'flaws' that were ALL deal breakers to them. Many of these l
Re:Take note (Score:5, Informative)
No CO2, sulpher dioxide, methane, ozone, light hydrocarbons or other pollutants.
So to say the US is blameless is premature, you need to see all the pollutnats and how they interact.
Re:Take note (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.temis.nl.nyud.net:8090/airpollution/ [nyud.net] (nyud.net cached copy)
Nitrogen Dioxide:
http://www.temis.nl.nyud.net:8090/airpollution/no2
The US sulfur dioxide emissions seemed pretty low, even in the acid-rain-prone Northeast. Some of the ocean blooms of SO2 seemed odd, tho.
And not only that... (Score:2)
With this much competition for oil, and peak oil production close or possibly already passed, it's sobering to think about what could be...
(And alternative fuels won't be the only way to release ourselves from oil dependence. One would hope that we'd continue to heavily research nuclear, including fusion, options; plans for complete nuclear non-proliferation completely kill any significant efforts in these areas, even for energy means.)
Re:And not only that... (Score:3, Insightful)
Are nuclear options not alternatives to fossil fuels?
Not in this context (Score:3, Informative)
Re:And not only that... (Score:3, Informative)
Yes. And No.
There are two sides to the equation of power generation. One is large stationary power plants. Switching these to ever more modern nuclear designs would make a lot of sense, and would improve things dramatically.
Unfortunately, the other side of the equation is portable power generators like petroleum engines. (i.e. your car) These use power independent of the stationary plants and are much harder to find alternatives for. The best suggesti
Re:And not only that... (Score:3, Interesting)
Better yet: Build nukes, and let people juice their cars up on hydrogen that they generate in their home garages through electrolysis of water using all that nuclear g
Re:And not only that... (Score:3, Interesting)
Additionally, due to the extreme energy density of uranium, it is feasable to 'mine' the oceans if the near
Re:And not only that... (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea of "electricity too cheap to meter" is a fantasy because you still need a bigarsed steam-powered generator no matter what the heat source, not because of fuel concerns. The quantity of fuel used is so vastly lower than the amount of coal and oil burned in fossil fuel plants that the cost of mining really isn't that much, even given the relative scarcity of the element itself.
It won't run out any time soon either if you reprocess spent fuel and also breed fissile materials from thorium, but both of those have materials-handling and security problems (not unsolvable, but enough that the US doesn't use them).
Electric heat, no; very inefficient. Ground source heat-pumps, yes.
Electric heating is as efficient as gas heating; in both cases, you're turning virtually all of the available energy into heat. A heat pump is more efficient than either because it draws heat from the surrounding area (at such a relatively small temperature difference, it costs less to do this than to just dump heat into the house). The reason we use gas heating instead of electric is that electrical energy is more expensive to produce, joule for joule, than the equivalent amount of natural gas. This is a production issue, as opposed to a point-of-use issue.
In short, while I agree with your positions, I disagree with the reasons
Re:And not only that... (Score:3, Insightful)
Quantities will still be far less than the wastes (and other environmental disruption) caused by coal mining and oil drilling and shipping of both substances. I agree that with any form of mining, you have a negative environmental impact; it's just that I rarely see people appreciating exactly how much less material is needed.
I'm also amused by listing sodium chloride as a contaminant. While it will cause probl
Re:And not only that... (Score:3, Insightful)
Who said anything about it being too cheap to meter? We're talking about feasably replacing gasoline and coal with nuclear, not making energy free. Indeed it could be cheaper, but it wouldn't be free.
Electric heat, no; very inefficient. Ground source heat-pumps, yes.
Inefficient, yes, but better than burning oil or natural gas in every house? Debatable. It certainly less polutin
Re:And not only that... (Score:2)
Re:Take note (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Take note (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow, a lot of myths there, let me just cover the major ones.
Myth #1: public transportation is always inefficient.
Take a look at the public transportation systems of most of europe. There's no reason public transportation needs to be expensive, low-comfort, or have lousy geographic availability.
Myth #2: the american lifestyle must be changed to reduce energy use in america.
In fact, america could cut its energy use in half without a measurable impact on consumer lifestyles, through tried and tested energy reduction policies which have been employed in europe for years (and europe is pretty bad itself when it comes to energy use), but because the US energy industry funds american politicians (democrats and republicans) heavily, nothing ever gets done about it.
Myth #3: kyoto can't be realized without US cooperation
All that is needed is russia ratifying it, and putin recently said he will. So within a year kyoto will become active, if putin keeps his word that is.
Myth #4: kyoto is a tool for the rest of the world to "go after" america.
Kyoto is simply a tool to stop greenhouse gas levels from rising further, because they're already at the highest they've been in a million years, and if they rise much further dramatic climate change is inevitable. The cost of not doing anything far outweighs the cost of preventing it. The last time there was this much carbondioxide in the atmosphere, there were no polar ice caps. The sad thing about kyoto is that it was watered down significantly to be palatable to the US, and still america broke its word and didn't ratify it.
Myth #5: the only countries to join kyoto are those that have petty political reasons
Right now, 126 nations have joined kyoto (and not just signed the treaty). This is the vast majority of the planet, if measured in population (but sadly, without the US and russia, not in pollution).
Re:Take note (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Take note (Score:4, Interesting)
"Steel Belt"??? (Score:3, Informative)
The Ohio River Valley is a chemical belt and my best guess would be these plants that run from Louisville/Huntington/Parkersburg/Wheeling.
Re:Take note (Score:2)
You've got a good pair of eyes! The image is very small. I can barly see a thing. Anyway, the blob you see in Canada seem to be in Alberta, where they extract petrol.
Pollution level does match the population density, it's just plain normal.
Re:Take note (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the lower posters also raised a good point. Being a successful economy means you can use your sources of energy to create more money. The USA has mastered this, largely because we were one of the first nations to do this, and because we were blessed w/ huge amounts of wood, then coal, and then oil that allowed us to get so far ahead. This is grossly oversimplified, but a lot of our infrastructure is already paid for, so our energy is cheap. Contrast that w/ China, who is just now trying to create that "good living through more energy" that we've enjoyed for decades, and you realize that their costs are higher. If they did it in a environmental way, it would cost even more, and they wouldn't make it as far w/ the same amount of money. It's easy to see why they have a black cloud, cuz that's what their money dictates. They'll spend more money in the future on it, but not until their (newly wealthier) middle class starts demanding it, and then they'll pass the cost along.
Re:Take note (Score:3, Insightful)
England isn't a ma
Re:Take note (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Take note (Score:5, Interesting)
This doesn't actually impact NO2 levels, but it does explain some of the pollution reduction.
The primary reason that you don't see this type of pollution in the US is that the federal and local governments have taken a very agressive stance on NOx and SOx reduction from transportation (cars, trucks, and trains) and power plant (coal) sources. Some here have complained that the attack on these pollutants (along with particulate emission) has a lot to do with our lower fuel economy standards, as the rules make it pretty difficult, for instance, to introduce diesel powered cars, and they mandate the use of catalytic converters.
It isn't hard to understand why this has happened, either. NOx and SOx are the primary drivers of acid rain and smog, both of which directly and visibly impact quality of life in densely populated areas, like cities. Fixing them isn't something we have fought against, since the vast majority of Americans work and live in or near major cities, even in the "sparsely populated" parts of the country.
Western Europe on the other hand has chosen to go after consumption, and driven up fuel efficiency at the cost of reducing these types of pollutants. Given that Europeans tend to live in smaller, more distributed communities than Americans, smog, while a problem in Urban areas, directly impacts fewer people on a day to day basis than it does here.
Re:Take note (Score:4, Informative)
It's sad to say, but politicians go after the obvious, not the bad. If you can't smell it, they seem to be doing their job, even if the crap you can't smell or see is killing you and little is being done to stop the use/spread/contamination.
Re:Take note (Score:3, Insightful)
Last year, the only manufacturer of diesel passenger vehicles in the US was Volkswagen. This year, Mercedes (
Re:Take note (Score:5, Informative)
National Geographic had an article recently about pollution in China and it was just down-right frightening.
Excerpts from the March 2004 issue are available here: http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0403/featu re4/index.html [nationalgeographic.com]
Re:Take note (Score:2)
Looks like it's the Michigan Lakes area. That's a heavy industrial area in the US (steel mostly I think).
Re:Take note (Score:2, Insightful)
For all the whining and complaining about how the US should have joined the Kyoto accord, it's very easy to see that China is the #1 offender, and that Europe is not doing so hot itself. What good would Kyoto have done if it exempted the country who needs it most?
Umm... what? That makes no sense. The #1 offender being exempted doesn't magically erase the good of all the other countries signing the treaty. It's like saying "what's the good of arresting lesser terrorists if we haven't arrested Bin Lade
Re:Take note (Score:2)
Look at the map. The NO2 levels in all other areas of the world don't even begin to compare to those of China.
For future reference, characterising other people as whiners is not a good idea if you want replies to be civil.
My apologies:
s/whining and complaining/loud vocal complaints/g
One step China has taken - (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Take note (Score:2)
That's similar to how the electoral map looks.
ILL Clinton
Maker of Machinima movies. [illclan.com]
Re:Take note (Score:2)
So, I while car may be the primary producer, the amounts created are able to be dissapated/reduced/reused/stored by the environment/local areas. While coal power plants and coal fires produce a dramatic spike that can not be absorbed by the surrounding environment.
good start (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Take note (Score:5, Insightful)
Now there aren't AFAIK any restrictions on China or other developing countries, but China has ratified the agreement and when they really step up as an industrialized country they will have restrictions imposed thus it is in their interest to stay within the future requirements.
Had there been placed restrictions on China or other developing countries they probably never would have signed the agreement because it might have inhibited their growth. (Now what is the real reason the U.S. isn't signing?)
Furthermore I don't think the true objective is reduced emissions, we're far to spoiled to let that happen. The point is getting a situation under control before it gets out of hand.
(P.S. I know slashdotters have a penchant for insulting people, but please try to keep your replies civil. I don't know everything, so correct me in a polite manner. Thank you.)
Ditto
Re:Take note (Score:2)
Just think: "Save the environment, have sex TODAY!"
Woo hoo!
Re:Take note (Score:5, Insightful)
US population (2004/07 est.): 293,027,571
China population (2004/07 est.): 1,298,847,624
US population growth (2004 est.): 0.92%
China population growth (2004 est.): 0.57%
US industrial production growth (2003 est.): 0.3%
China industrial production growth (2003 est.): 30.4%
US GDP per-capita (2003 est.): 37,800 USD
China GDP per-capita (2003 est.): 5,000 USD
US GDP real growth rate (2003 est.): 3.1%
China GDP real growth rate (2003 est. official data): 9.1%
US electricity consumption (2001): 3.602 trillion kWh
China electricity consumption (2001): 1.312 trillion kWh
US oil consumption (2001 est.): 19.65 million bbl/day
China oil consumption (2001 est.): 4.57 million bbl/day
US natural gas consumption (2001 est.): 640.9 billion m^3
China natural gas consumption (2001 est.): 27.4 billion m^3
How long do you think it will take China to catch up with the US? How much energy will China be using then? How much pollution will China be creating then?
And, as an aside:
US GDP (2003 est.): 10.99 trillion USD
China GDP (2003 est.): 6.449 trillion USD
US current trade account balance (2003): -541.8 billion USD
China current trade account balance (2003): 31.17 billion USD
How long will it take the US to go totally bankrupt?
Re:Take note (Score:2)
Re:Take note (Score:3, Insightful)
"The blob over Canada is actually a bit surprising"
Not sure which blob you are talking about. The really bad one in Eastern North America is almost certainly coming from the massive concentration of coal fired power plants in Ohio, Pensylvania and West Virginia some of which drifts in to Canada.
The lighter blob in Western Canada is almost certainly coal fired power p
Re:Take note (Score:4, Interesting)
We've already done the exact same thing with Ozone depleting chemicals with the Montreal Protocol in 1987. The developed countries largely payed for the technology development for safer ozone depleting gasses and the developing countries get a bit more time to implement it. If developing countries don't, you're in a lot better position to start imposing sanctions, trade policies, etc to try to get them to do so. If you just sit on your hands and do nothing, that's probbably what you're going to get.
Re:Take note (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Take note (Score:5, Informative)
Now go sit in the corner and get educated
In your car's engine, Nitrogen in the air combines with Oxygen in air to create oxides of nitrogen, commonly called NOx for brevity.
How does it combine? The heat of combustion of the fuel in the engine is sufficient to do it. Lean-running engines that run hotter (well, have a longer burning flame front), while more fuel efficient, also have the unfortunate problem of creating more oxides of nitrogen.
It doesn't matter what you burn in there, any combustion temperatures over a thousand degrees C or so has sufficient energy to drive the NOx chemical reaction. Petrol, Diesel, Hydrogen... all of those fuels indirectly produce NOx.
The goal in modern cars is to lower the combustion chamber temperatures, which is why most cars have some form of exhaust gas recirculation to deliberately "posion" the incoming air/fuel mix to make it burn cooler. Fuel economy suffers as a result of reducing NOx emissons.
Re:some basic engineering for you (Score:3, Interesting)
And Exhaust [asashop.org] gas [visionengineer.com] Recirculation [xse.com] *IS* used primarily for NOx reduction.
You are probably thinking of the system where an air pump pumps air into the exhaust system to burn off the residual fuel products. This page [autoshop-online.com] gives a pretty good overview of emission contro
Re:Take note (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not suprised, because I have a clue (Score:5, Insightful)
No serious student of current events can escape the reality that political freedom and economic prosperity are linked. The old soviet empire attempted to foster economic openness to gain it's productivity benefits while keeping political freedom in the hands of the Party. They failed. China is making the same attempt and the signs are they are also going to fail. Freedom is the natural state of affairs and you can't supress it in one sphere while keeping it in the others.
Rising standards of living solve most of the pressing problems facing the world today. Birth rates are lowest in the free/wealthy nations and highest in the poor/oppressed ones. Wealthy/Free nations don't tend to make war on each other. Wealthy nations don't tend to produce terrorists either.
Re:I'm not suprised, because I have a clue (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I'm not suprised, because I have a clue (Score:2, Insightful)
So, BushCo should just keep trucking the troops into every non-democratic country to enforce democracy at gunpoint? I mean, Iraq and Afghanistan are such "Cataclysmic Successes" [Bush, 2004] and we all know that our humanitarian efforts are applauded by the international community.
I'm sure most non-G8 countries are lining up to be the next
Re:I'm not suprised, because I have a clue (Score:2)
Unfortunately, the entire world cannot be free, because it simply isn't big enough. Imagine cramming 100 people in a 12' by 10' cell and telling them "Now, be free and happy!" What's going to happen?
Inevitably, some of the people who are stronger, more intelligent, or more persuasive than the others will end up shoving the "undesirables" into a cage in the corner of the room in order to give themselves "breath
Re:I'm not suprised, because I have a clue (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps, but not pollution . . . as global prosperity increases, so does global pollution. Efficiency of energy and resource usage increases, but overall consumption also increases such that overall there is a net increase in environental impact. One may argue that Kuznet's curve predicts that as people become more wealthy, they care more about the environment. this has been shown to be true in many locals; however, I'
Re:I'm not suprised, because I have a clue (Score:4, Insightful)
Bullshit. China is almost assured of being a raging economic success at this point, as long as they can keep a handle on their raging growth. You specifically mentioned them, and tried to dismiss them, because they derail your whole "Freedom and Democracy = "Wealth" theory. Singapore is another raging financial success and they aren't a towering symbol of freedom either.
The U.S.S.R's major economic failing was they chose economic isolation, and the west obliged and economically isolated them. They also impaled themselves on a misguided war in Afghanistan, a quagmire very similar to Vietnam and the new Iraq.
China astutely figured out they had lots of the thing Capitalis want most, cheap, oppressed, well educated labor. Rather than fighting the West like the U.S.S.R they threw their doors open and hung out a welcome sign. Capitalists can't tear down their factories in the West and ship them to China fast enough.
China is almost certain to surpass the U.S. as the world's economic superpower unless something cataclysmic happens, especially if the U.S. keeps its head up its ass and keeps handing all its capital and IP over to China.
"Rising standards of living solve most of the pressing problems facing the world today."
Excepting of course energy consumption and pollution.
"Wealthy/Free nations don't tend to make war on each other."
No but they do make war on poor nations especially ones they want to turn in to colonies, reference the British empire, the French empire, the German empire, the American empire(formally dominating the Phillipines and the entire Western Hemisphere and now moving to Asia and the Middle East.
Its a lot easier to be a "free/wealthy" nation when you are looting poor third world nations where you've installed dictators who do your bidding.
"Wealthy nations don't tend to produce terrorists either."
Saudi Arabia is a very wealthy nation, though the wealth is poorly distributed, and it produced most of the 9/11 hijackers.
Re:I'm not suprised, because I have a clue (Score:2)
Doing something poorly or half-assed isn't always better. I'm sure that most afghans would prefer to be alive than the ability to vote. Taking the time to do something right is important, especially when lives are on the line.
Johannesburg glowing (Score:2, Insightful)
red blob over east russia (Score:2, Interesting)
A quick mirror (Score:3, Informative)
I don't normally make mirrors so if someone has a better method (somehow using wget?) lemme know.
PS: this is off've my 1.5Mb/768Kb DSL line, so don't expect any miracles.
Re:A quick mirror - I'm an idiot (Score:5, Informative)
Re:A quick mirror - I'm an idiot (Score:2)
Re:Are you crazy? (Score:2)
It's not like the article points directly to a 245KB PDF right off've my web server.
BTW: I fixed it so both links work, so no more 404 off've the "bad" initial link.
Red blob (Score:5, Funny)
That's the "Red menace", we've known about that since the '50s
That blob... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:That blob... (Score:3, Funny)
I guess the blurb was written by someone attending geography classes in a US highschool...
night map (Score:5, Interesting)
not so surprising (Score:2, Informative)
Dihydrogen Monoxide is at fault (Score:2, Funny)
I'm sure that DHMO has something to with this since it is far worse for the environment.
Russia? (Score:5, Interesting)
Coral cache of mirror (Score:5, Informative)
Where are the third world offenders? (Score:4, Insightful)
You can't tell someone that the world is dying when it is right in front of them, unchanged for years. They are trying to make a living, they get offered an opportunity to improve their environment, and don't change. Yet for some reason, even with *this* atmospheric data you can see who the "big offenders" supposedly are.
Why then, do global warmning advocates expend so much time and effort making third world countries try to adhere to restrictions even the US and China don't want to?
GLOBAL AIR POLLUTION PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/onlcourse/chm110/outl ines/topic9.html
Global Pollution and Climate Change http://www.jri.org.uk/brief/climatechange.htm
this is a great write up with good information
You're kidding, right? (Score:3, Interesting)
The single biggest blot, other than the one over everybody's favorite red menace, is square over the northeastern US. The richest country pollutes more than anyone except the country that does all of the richest country's dirty work (and has more people than everyone else combined, to boot).
LATFI! (look at the _ucking image!)
Re:You're kidding, right? (Score:3, Funny)
Am I the only one who gets a real kick out of this statement?
That's where the Arctic haze comes from (Score:5, Insightful)
In Alaska, we often see a hazy [alaska.edu] sky [nsidc.org], caused by pollution from Siberia and points east.
For the long term, we should probably be more worried about the Soviet nuclear waste [atimes.com] the Soviets and now the Russians have accumulated in the Arctic and Pacific Oceans. Then there's the nuclear plants [rosatom.ru], two of them in Siberia, that we're down wind of. They were built by the same government which brought us Chernobyl [kiddofspeed.com].
If you're looking for things to worry about, you'll never run out.
Opening our eyes (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Opening our eyes (Score:3, Insightful)
Greenhouse denial is everywhere. The name is descriptive enough to know what it means, but I'll explain (as I have in umpteen other Slashdot posts). The Greenhouse is the accumulating atmospheric defect (from human perspective) that traps more solar energy than the biosphere has adapted to survive. It's a feedback loop, with excess CO2 gas - and others, like the NO2 demonstrated in this map - trapping more energy, which causes more biological
I don't believe it (Score:2, Insightful)
If you read http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/environment/ [newscientist.com] it's quite obvious climatologists have no idea what the hell they're talking about as almost every article contains something about "this new information radically changes the way scientists think about xyz."
Don't get me wrong, we do need to stop burning fossil fuels, stop driving SUVs and shoot trash into the sun. Climatologist is still synonymous with quack in my book.
Re:I don't believe it (Score:3, Insightful)
This story and an earlier one on /. .... (Score:3, Informative)
Huh? (Score:2)
"Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) is a mainly man-made gas...It also plays an important role in atmospheric chemistry, because it leads to the production of ozone in the troposphere"
Wait...I thought mankind was destroying the ozone layer, but man-made chemicals play an important role in ozone creation?
Obviously there's probably some sort of something or other going on here.
It's easy, really... (Score:5, Informative)
The ozone layer is in the stratosphere.
Ozone in the troposphere is not all that great, since it causes a lot of problems in respiration. Ozone in the stratosphere is good since it cannot be inhaled (too far away from us) and keeps that UV radiation from hurting us.
With ozone, it's all about where it is.
-Jellisky
Better quality images? (Score:2)
validity of the study (Score:5, Interesting)
This looks like a relatively professional study: the maps on the website are a composite of 18 months worth of data. This is good methodology to ensure that anomalies are removed (unusual smog days, lightnings storms, etc).
This map is a measure of the vertical density of NO2 in a given column (represented by the area of each pixel on the original image, which is dependant on the camera).
One misleading thing: There is no mention of the climatological effects of the world's mountain ranges, and thus the prevailing winds. This is clearly illustrated along the Himilayas in India and the Andes mountains in South America. The topography is clearly causing bottlenecks in the distribution and dispersion of air. Thus, the map is not necessarily an indicator of where the actual pollution was produced. Naturally, in locations where airflow is reduced, the vertical profile of ANY gas concentration will be higher.
I'd predict you'll even see some similar patterns in global precipitation maps if you were to overlay the two.
(disclaimer: yes I am a prefessional geographer)
Re:validity of the study (Score:4, Funny)
(disclaimer: yes I am a prefessional geographer)
On the other hand, I am not a prefessional speller...
NO2 is not that good.. N2O is much better :) (Score:3, Funny)
jahahhahahaaaaaaaaaduuude it's funny
Some photographs from China... (Score:3, Interesting)
#1 [yahoo.com], #2 [yahoo.com], and #3 [yahoo.com].
Eastern Russia? Try China (Score:3, Insightful)
Hate to argue, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
So while the study produced an interesting picture that shows something, maybe, by not scaling it properly, the entire thing useless.
NO2 by the way only means that nitrogen and oxygen were mixed at high temperature. Cars are the most common source of NO2 pollution. Industrial pollution is much better measured by different chemicals.
See what you want to see? (Score:4, Insightful)
First, I don't see how anyone can look at that map and claim Europe has more pollution than the US. C'mon, are you... visually deaf? Use a ruler if it needs be, but please take a close look. I understand that the 1st map being zoomed in can play a role in there, but please, just put it in perspective. The blob just above Italy is about 1/6 size of the one above the US, while the other large blob in Europe is about 1/5th that of the north american one. I mean... c'mon...
Second, bear in mind that NO2 is by far not the only polluting agent that human activity sends into the atmosphere - and it's not the only one that is nocious. It does cause O3 to build up, which would be a good thing in the upper layers of the atmosphere but deadly and poisonous at human-reachable levels (ever noticed there are pool-cleaning systems that use O3 (ozone) instead of clorum?
I urge the 1st poster to really go and revisit that link and read the whole article, and actually examine the map in comparable zoom factors. And yes, that's China and not Russia, like another not-so-geographically-challenged reader pointed out.
I did like that comment about industry from more advanced countries fleeing to China where regulations are not as harsh - food for thought. I suppose it's ok if we go and poison other countries to protect our way of life.
Re:all the pollution activist in the US are pointl (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:all the pollution activist in the US are pointl (Score:2)
Not sure what your exact definition of "resources" is, but one should remember that the US produces 25% of global GDP - that is, 25% of the worlds goods and services.
Looking at pollution, CO2 emmissions per dollar of US GDP have been steadilly decreasing for 50 years. On the other hand, CO2 emmissions per capita in the US (and the UK) have held pretty steady, despite significant increases in GDP per capita.
The Oxbrid [oxfordenergy.org]
Re:all the pollution activist in the US are pointl (Score:4, Informative)
The US contains 5% of the world's population but consumes 25% of the world's resources.
Which is of course, not only completely wrong, even if it was correct, it would be comparing the wrong things.
It is true that the US consumes roughly 25% of the industrially supplied energy on the planet ... but that is a far cry from concluding that the US consumes 25% of ALL world resources. In this type of energy to population comparison, Western Europe also fairs poorly by consuming a far larger share of the world's industrial energy production than its population entitles it to consume.
Of course, more relevant comparisons would be to industrially produced energy consumed per unit of economic output, or some such similar metric. In this type of comparison, the industrialized world fairs much better, than most third world nations. The amount of energy required to produce a bushel of grain in the US or France compared to sub-saharan Africa is much, much lower, and a kilo of sheep's wool in Australia is less energy intensive to produce than a kilo from South America. The US just happens to produce vastly more grain than sub-saharan Africa, so overall, so overall its grain production efforts will consume much more energy.
I don't mean to excuse wasteful or inefficient consumption of energy in the industrialized world, because there certainly is a lot of that going on, just to point out that you are not considering a realistic metric for comparison.
Re:all the pollution activist in the US are pointl (Score:3, Informative)
I had to respond to this, with the fact the poster conveniently left out:
The U.S. produces 31% of the worlds output.
Thus, we use the energy more efficiently than the rest of the world.
Re:all the pollution activist in the US are pointl (Score:3, Insightful)
How many nations produce automobiles? US vehicles are used around the world.
How many nations produce aluminum? This is an extremely power-intensive procedure. (Anyone know what fraction of the US grid goes to these plants?)
I'm not sure about worldwide aluminum production, so I may be off there, but it's something to consider.
Re:all the pollution activist in the US are pointl (Score:3, Insightful)
Lots of pollution over the US. Lots over Europe. Lots over Japan. Less over less-developed nations. How much of that is because the industries are located there, and not in the other nations? Some of these industries require a lot of electricity, and so are difficult to place in other countries. Those areas export to the less-developed nations. Rich providing goods for poor. Now do you get my point?
Re:I am not a biologist (Score:2)
Bizarre analogy, I know.
Re:New Zealand is Pollution-free (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:PSA (Score:3, Informative)
Not bad at all.