scholarly journals Atmospheric pollutants in a changing environment: key issues in reactivity and monitoring, global warming, and health

2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (7) ◽  
pp. 4789-4792 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Jiménez ◽  
Francisco J. Tapiador ◽  
Francisco J. Sáez-Martínez
Author(s):  
Klaus Dodds ◽  
Jamie Woodward

The Arctic: A Very Short Introduction provides an account of the Arctic, its physical environment, and its people. The Arctic is demanding global attention as it warms, melts, and thaws in a manner that threatens not just its 4 million inhabitants, but the whole planet. The reduction of the Arctic to its changing environment would ignore the complexities of the region and its potential. This VSI explores key issues facing the region today, from geopolitics to global warming. It examines the causes and effects of cultural, physical, ecological, political, and economic change in the Arctic, and considers its uncertain future.


Transport ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jurgita Barysienė ◽  
Nijolė Batarlienė ◽  
Darius Bazaras ◽  
Kristina Čižiūnienė ◽  
Daiva Griškevičienė ◽  
...  

The rapidly changing world determines changes in the business processes. Logistics and transport are the areas facing constant changes. Therefore, an important point is to analyse the current problems of logistics and transport within the context of the changing environment. For many years, the experts of the Dept of Logistics and Transport Management of the Faculty of Transport Engineering from Vilnius Gediminas Technical University have been pursuing research both, in the Baltic Sea Region (BSR) in Lithuania and foreign countries. This research has been directed toward improvements to logistics and the entire supply chain in pursuit of economic, social and ecological competitiveness, an increase in the competitiveness and attractiveness of the transport system in the context of sustainable development, the impact of this system on the economic and social welfare of society, an increase in the competitiveness and attractiveness of the transport sector of improving the legal framework and the application of innovative technologies (including IT) in the transport sector aimed at implementing economic and social cohesion goals. The article deals with some of the key issues of the above introduced research.


1988 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 84-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan A. Lucier

Abstract Forest inventory data collected by the USDA Forest Service shows that pine forests in the Southeast have changed in many ways since the 1950s. The average age and density of natural stands has increased substantially over the past 30 years, perhaps reflecting the maturation of a large number of stands established between 1945 and 1965. Growth rates of some classes of trees and stands have decreased, but it is not known whether increases in age and density are largely responsible. The existence of growth reductions in natural stands is an expected consequence of the documented changes in stand conditions. The magnitude of the growth reductions, however, cannot be objectively defined as normal or abnormal on the basis of existing data. Researchers are attempting to define the contributions of stand conditions, drought, land-use patterns, atmospheric pollutants, and other factors to observed growth reductions. There is at present no demonstrated link between air pollutants and growth reductions in natural pine stands and no evidence of growth reductions on intensively managed forest industry lands. South. J. Appl. For. 12(2):84-89.


Author(s):  
Athule Ngqalakwezi ◽  
Diakanua Bevon Nkazi ◽  
Siwela Jeffrey Baloyi ◽  
Thabang Abraham Ntho

Global warming is a pertinent issue and is quintessential of the environmental issues that the world is facing, and thereby, remedial actions and technologies that aim to alleviate this issue are of paramount importance. In this chapter, hydrogen has been discussed as an alternative energy that can potentially replace traditional fuels such as diesel and gasoline. The storage of hydrogen as a gas, liquid, and solid was discussed. The key issues in hydrogen storage were also highlighted. Furthermore, regulations and legislations concerning the emission of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels-based sources were discussed.


1992 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald L. Klass

Fossil fuel utilization worldwide has increased significantly over the last 100 years, especially since World War II, as illustrated by the curves in Figure 1. The resulting emissions to the atmosphere are believed by many to result in a variety of environmental problems such as the Greenhouse Effect and global warming (1). The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to assess in some detail specific atmospheric pollutants that have been either directly (CO2, CO, CH4, SOx, NOx hydrocarbons, particulates) or indirectly (O3) related to fossil fuel usage and to compare them with emissions from other anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic sources.


2020 ◽  
pp. 251-256
Author(s):  
David Kilcullen

The epilogue traces what happened to James Woolsey after 1993, explores issues of resilience and sustainability in the Western approach to war, and emphasizes the need to look beyond military victory to a better peace, which after all is the ultimate object of war. The epilogue looks at the key issues (including climate, energy, vulnerability to cyber and electronic attack, and political stability) that have become Woolsey’s primary focus since leaving government. It examines the issue of societal resilience, including against natural disasters and events beyond human agency, and emphasizes the need for societies—not just military strategists and planners—to adapt and respond to the changing environment.


2012 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 577-592 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deng-Hua Yan ◽  
Jing Feng ◽  
Chuan-Zhe Li ◽  
Tian-Ling Qin ◽  
Bai-Sha Weng ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
D. J. Wallis ◽  
N. D. Browning

In electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS), the near-edge region of a core-loss edge contains information on high-order atomic correlations. These correlations give details of the 3-D atomic structure which can be elucidated using multiple-scattering (MS) theory. MS calculations use real space clusters making them ideal for use in low-symmetry systems such as defects and interfaces. When coupled with the atomic spatial resolution capabilities of the scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM), there therefore exists the ability to obtain 3-D structural information from individual atomic scale structures. For ceramic materials where the structure-property relationships are dominated by defects and interfaces, this methodology can provide unique information on key issues such as like-ion repulsion and the presence of vacancies, impurities and structural distortion.An example of the use of MS-theory is shown in fig 1, where an experimental oxygen K-edge from SrTiO3 is compared to full MS-calculations for successive shells (a shell consists of neighboring atoms, so that 1 shell includes only nearest neighbors, 2 shells includes first and second-nearest neighbors, and so on).


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Millington ◽  
Peter M. Cox ◽  
Jonathan R. Moore ◽  
Gabriel Yvon-Durocher

Abstract We are in a period of relatively rapid climate change. This poses challenges for individual species and threatens the ecosystem services that humanity relies upon. Temperature is a key stressor. In a warming climate, individual organisms may be able to shift their thermal optima through phenotypic plasticity. However, such plasticity is unlikely to be sufficient over the coming centuries. Resilience to warming will also depend on how fast the distribution of traits that define a species can adapt through other methods, in particular through redistribution of the abundance of variants within the population and through genetic evolution. In this paper, we use a simple theoretical ‘trait diffusion’ model to explore how the resilience of a given species to climate change depends on the initial trait diversity (biodiversity), the trait diffusion rate (mutation rate), and the lifetime of the organism. We estimate theoretical dangerous rates of continuous global warming that would exceed the ability of a species to adapt through trait diffusion, and therefore lead to a collapse in the overall productivity of the species. As the rate of adaptation through intraspecies competition and genetic evolution decreases with species lifetime, we find critical rates of change that also depend fundamentally on lifetime. Dangerous rates of warming vary from 1°C per lifetime (at low trait diffusion rate) to 8°C per lifetime (at high trait diffusion rate). We conclude that rapid climate change is liable to favour short-lived organisms (e.g. microbes) rather than longer-lived organisms (e.g. trees).


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