Anthropogenic air pollution

The United States Clean Air Act of 1977 set as a national goal the prevention of any future degradation and the reduction of any existing impairment of visibility in mandatory class I federal areas caused by anthropogenic air pollution. The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 reinforce the support of these goals. (See Chapter 22 foj a discussion of federal classes of areas.) These areas include most of the major national parks, such as the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and Zion Park. This portion of the Clean Air Act ad-... 

The wide-spread forest decline in Europe and North-America is regarded from scientists of different schools as caused predominantly by the impact of air pollution. Without anthropogenic air pollution there would not be forest damages to the present extent (Scholz, 1984). 

The direct impact of anthropogenic air pollutants on the needles and leaves of plants may cause a variety of damage. High average loads and especially extreme load pikes of SO2 in the winter months, lead to characteristic damage symptoms in the case of spruce. The relative tolerance of trees to SO2 pollution is an intrinsic factor of morphological and physiological defense mech-... 

Anthropogenic air pollution is an important source of acidity in ecosystems without carbonates in the soil (Legge and Krupa 1990). The sum of nitrogen and sulfur loads contributes to the critical acidity load. The acidity is linked with the cycles of base cations and phosphorus. 

Volkamer R, Jimenez JL, San Martini F, Dzepina K, Zhang Q, Salcedo D, Molina LT, Worsnop DR, Molina MJ (2006) Secondary organic aerosol formation from anthropogenic air pollution rapid and higher than expected. Geophys Res Lett 33 L17811... 

The Blue Ridge Mountains in the United States are part of the Appalachian Mountain chain extending from Georgia into Pennsylvania. They are noted for the blue haze that envelops the mountains. What is the chemical process that makes these mountains blue and why were they blue even in times when anthropogenic air pollution was not a factor ... 

Volkamer, R., J.L. Jimenez, F. San Martini, K. Dzepina, Q. Zhang, D. Salcedo, L.T. Molina, D.R. Worsnop, and M.J. Molina (2006), Secondary organic aerosol formation from anthropogenic air pollution Rapid and higher than expected, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L17811/1-L17811/4. 

Certainly, photochemical air pollution is not merely a local problem. Indeed, spread of anthropogenic smog plumes away from urban centers results in regional scale oxidant problems, such as found in the NE United States and many southern States. Ozone production has also been connected with biomass burning in the tropics (79,80,81). Transport of large-scale tropospheric ozone plumes over large distances has been documented from satellite measurements of total atmospheric ozone (82,83,84), originally taken to study stratospheric ozone depletion. 

Clean and Polluted Air. In the development of atmospheric chemistry, there has been an historic separation between those studying processes in the natural or unpolluted atmosphere, and those more concerned with air pollution chemistry. As the field has matured, these distinctions have begun to disappear, and with this disappearance has come the realization that few regions of the troposphere are completely unaffected by anthropogenic emissions. An operational definition of clean air could be based upon either the NMHC concentration, or upon the NOjj concentration. 

In this chapter we provide an overview of the chemistry of the lower and upper atmospheres. In Chapter 2, we illustrate how this chemistry plays a critical role in the concept of an integrated atmospheric chemistry system —a loop that starts with emissions (anthropogenic and natural) and ultimately closes with scientific health and environmental risk assessments and associated risk management decisions for the control of air pollutants. 

As discussed in Chapter 1, much of our understanding of the chemistry of our atmosphere is based on early studies of air pollution these are often treated in the context of an overall system. This approach starts with the various sources of anthropogenic and natural emissions and tracks the resulting pollutants through their atmospheric transport, transformations, and ambient concentrations—on local, regional, and global scales—to their ultimate chemical and physical fates, including their impacts on our health and environment. 

He received his B.S. (1945) and Ph.D. (1949) from the University of California, Los Angeles his research advisor was Professor Francis E. Blacet, who first identified the photolysis of N02 as the anthropogenic source of ozone in photochemical air pollution. From 1942 to 1945, he participated in laboratory and field studies in chemical warfare. He was on the faculty at Northwestern University from 1949 to 1954, leaving to join the faculty at the new University of California, Riverside, campus. He was a Guggenheim Fellow at University College, Oxford, in 1961 and a Research Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, in 1965. 

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