An analysis of the spatial patterns of human health related surface ozone metrics across the UK in 1995, 2003 and 2005

2008 ◽  
Vol 42 (8) ◽  
pp. 1702-1716 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Stedman ◽  
Andrew J. Kent
2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 38030 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deivendran Kalirathinam ◽  
Raj Guruchandran ◽  
Prabhakar Subramani

The 2019 novel coronavirus officially named as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic by the World Health Organization, has spread to more than 180 countries. The ongoing global pandemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, spread to the United Kingdom (UK) in January 2020. Transmission within the UK was confirmed in February, leading to an epidemic with a rapid increase in cases in March. As on April 25- 2020, there have been 148,377 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the UK and 20,319 people with confirmed infection have died. Survival of critically ill patients is frequently associated with significant functional impairment and reduced health-related quality of life. Early physiotherapy and community rehabilitation of COVID-19 patients has recently been identified as an essential therapeutic tool and has become a crucial evidence-based component in the management of these patients. This comprehensive narrative review aims to describe recent progress in the application of physiotherapy management in COVID 19 patients. Assessment and evidence- based treatment of these patients should include prevention, reduction of adverse consequences in immobilization, and long-term impairment sequelae. A variety of techniques and modalities of early physiotherapy in intensive care unit are suggested by clinical research. They should be applied according to the stage of the disease, comorbidities, and patient’s level of cooperation.


2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (24) ◽  
pp. 12215-12231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Z. S. Stock ◽  
M. R. Russo ◽  
T. M. Butler ◽  
A. T. Archibald ◽  
M. G. Lawrence ◽  
...  

Abstract. We examine the effects of ozone precursor emissions from megacities on present-day air quality using the global chemistry–climate model UM-UKCA (UK Met Office Unified Model coupled to the UK Chemistry and Aerosols model). The sensitivity of megacity and regional ozone to local emissions, both from within the megacity and from surrounding regions, is important for determining air quality across many scales, which in turn is key for reducing human exposure to high levels of pollutants. We use two methods, perturbation and tagging, to quantify the impact of megacity emissions on global ozone. We also completely redistribute the anthropogenic emissions from megacities, to compare changes in local air quality going from centralised, densely populated megacities to decentralised, lower density urban areas. Focus is placed not only on how changes to megacity emissions affect regional and global NOx and O3, but also on changes to NOy deposition and to local chemical environments which are perturbed by the emission changes. The perturbation and tagging methods show broadly similar megacity impacts on total ozone, with the perturbation method underestimating the contribution partially because it perturbs the background chemical environment. The total redistribution of megacity emissions locally shifts the chemical environment towards more NOx-limited conditions in the megacities, which is more conducive to ozone production, and monthly mean surface ozone is found to increase up to 30% in megacities, depending on latitude and season. However, the displacement of emissions has little effect on the global annual ozone burden (0.12% change). Globally, megacity emissions are shown to contribute ~3% of total NOy deposition. The changes in O3, NOx and NOy deposition described here are useful for quantifying megacity impacts and for understanding the sensitivity of megacity regions to local emissions. The small global effects of the 100% redistribution carried out in this study suggest that the distribution of emissions on the local scale is unlikely to have large implications for chemistry–climate processes on the global scale.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carla Gama ◽  
Alexandra Monteiro ◽  
Myriam Lopes ◽  
Ana Isabel Miranda

<p>Tropospheric ozone (O<sub>3</sub>) is a critical pollutant over the Mediterranean countries, including Portugal, due to systematic exceedances to the thresholds for the protection of human health. Due to the location of Portugal, on the Atlantic coast at the south-west point of Europe, the observed O<sub>3</sub> concentrations are very much influenced not only by local and regional production but also by northern mid-latitudes background concentrations. Ozone trends in the Iberian Peninsula were previously analysed by Monteiro et al. (2012), based on 10-years of O<sub>3</sub> observations. Nevertheless, only two of the eleven background monitoring stations analysed in that study are located in Portugal and these two stations are located in Porto and Lisbon urban areas. Although during pollution events O<sub>3</sub> levels in urban areas may be high enough to affect human health, the highest concentrations are found in rural locations downwind from the urban and industrialized areas, rather than in cities. This happens because close to the sources (e.g., in urban areas) freshly emitted NO locally scavenges O<sub>3</sub>. A long-term study of the spatial and temporal variability and trends of the ozone concentrations over Portugal is missing, aiming to answer the following questions:</p><p>-           What is the temporal variability of ozone concentrations?</p><p>-           Which trends can we find in observations?</p><p>-           How were the ozone spring maxima concentrations affected by the COVID-19 lockdown during spring 2020?</p><p>In this presentation, these questions will be answered based on the statistical analysis of O<sub>3</sub> concentrations recorded within the national air quality monitoring network between 2005 and 2020 (16 years). The variability of the surface ozone concentrations over Portugal, on the timescales from diurnal to annual, will be presented and discussed, taking into account the physical and chemical processes that control that variability. Using the TheilSen function from the OpenAir package for R (Carslaw and Ropkins 2012), which quantifies monotonic trends and calculates the associated p-value through bootstrap simulations, O<sub>3</sub> concentration long-term trends will be estimated for the different regions and environments (e.g., rural, urban).  Moreover, taking advantage of the unique situation provided by the COVID-19 lockdown during spring 2020, when the government imposed mandatory confinement and citizens movement restriction, leading to a reduction in traffic-related atmospheric emissions, the role of these emissions on ozone levels during the spring period will be studied and presented.</p><p> </p><p>Carslaw and Ropkins, 2012. Openair—an R package for air quality data analysis. Environ. Model. Softw. 27-28,52-61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2011.09.008</p><p>Monteiro et al., 2012. Trends in ozone concentrations in the Iberian Peninsula by quantile regression and clustering. Atmos. Environ. 56, 184-193. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2012.03.069</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lily Gouldsbrough ◽  
Ryan Hossaini ◽  
Emma Eastoe ◽  
Paul J. Young

<p>Warm summer temperatures provide ideal conditions for the occurrence of extreme ground level ozone pollution episodes. Given the well-established negative impacts of ozone on human and plant health, understanding and attributing these extreme events is of importance to the scientific and wider community, particularly as heatwaves may become more frequent due to climate change. Extreme Value Analysis provides a powerful and flexible framework in which to statistically model unusually large observed values of ozone extracted from historical data. Here, a temperature dependent Peaks-Over-Threshold method based upon the Generalised Pareto Distribution is used to carry out a regional comparison of extreme ozone pollution episodes within the UK. Our analysis uses surface ozone observations from the UK’s extensive Automatic Urban and Rural Network. The statistical model was used to quantify the frequency and magnitude of extreme ozone events, including a probabilistic assessment of exceeding UK public health thresholds, conditional on temperature. Return levels are provided for each monitoring site demonstrating the expected future projections of extreme ozone pollution events across the UK. We find that across UK rural background sites, return periods for a daily maximum 8-hr ozone level of 100 ug/m3 (a 'moderate' level of air pollution in the UK's Air Quality Index) range from 32-147 days, based on analysis of the data in the decade 2010-2019. Similarly, for urban background sites the range is 36-869 days. An analysis of the spatio temporal variability in UK ozone extremes, along with their temperature dependence, will be presented.</p>


Author(s):  
John Nairn ◽  
Bertram Ostendorf ◽  
Peng Bi

The establishment of an effective policy response to rising heatwave impacts is most effective when the history of heatwaves, their current impacts and future risks, are mapped by a common metric. In response meteorological agencies aim to develop seamless climate, forecast, and warning heat impact services, spanning all temporal and spatial scales. The ability to diagnose heatwave severity using the Excess Heat Factor (EHF) has allowed the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (the Bureau) to publicly release 7-day heatwave severity maps since 2014. National meteorological agencies in the UK and the United States are evaluating global 7-day and multi-week EHF heatwave severity probability forecasts, whilst the Bureau contributes to a Copernicus project to supply the health sector with global EHF severity heatwave projection scenarios. In an evaluation of impact skill within global forecast systems, EHF intensity and severity is reviewed as a predictor of human health impact, and extended using climate observations and human health data for sites around the globe. Heatwave intensity, determined by short and long-term temperature anomalies at each locality, is normalized to permit spatial analysis and inter-site comparison. Dimensionless heatwave event moments of peak severity and accumulated severity are shown to correlate with noteworthy events around the globe, offering new insights into current and future heatwave variability and vulnerability. The EHF severity metric permits the comparison of international heatwave events and their impacts, and is readily implemented within international heatwave early warning systems.


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