Participation of Ukrainian Educational and Research Institutions in Implementation of the Tasks of the Pan-Eurasian Experiment (PEEX)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergiy Stepanenko ◽  
Anatoliy Polovyi
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Air Quality ◽  
Adaptive Learning ◽  
Forest Fires ◽  
Geographic Region ◽  
Research Infrastructure ◽  
Transfer Of Knowledge ◽  
Joint Research ◽  
Practical Result ◽  
Research Plan

<p>In 2019 three Ukrainian institutions (Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Institute and Odessa State Environmental University) joined the Pan-Eurasian Experiment (PEEX). This can be considered as a practical result of implementation of the Erasmus+ international educational project of ‘Adaptive Learning Environment for Competence in Economic and Societal Impacts of Local Weather, Air Quality and Climate’ (ECOIMPACT) being in line with the ideology of PEEX (research – research infrastructure – education) and covering part of the project’s geographic region.</p><p>Inclusion of the Ukrainian institutions in the project will make it possible to develop studies into climate change issues, their impact on air quality, dynamics of carbon cycles in ecosystems, biodiversity loss, greenhouse gas emissions and forest fires, public health, chemization of industry and agriculture, food provision, energy production and access to fresh water in Ukraine –  all those tasks which are designated as priority ones in the PEEX project.</p><p>Under the framework of Infrastructure subprogramme of the PEEX, Ukrainian partners plan to create a long-term research infrastructure to consist of an extensive network of research stations, being only standard meteorological stations so far. Unfortunately, in Ukraine there are no FluxNet micrometeorological stations, let alone flagship research stations, to provide for measurement of a complete set of characteristics of the ecosystem-to-atmosphere interaction.</p><p>Having regard to the joint research plan of the Ukrainian project partners for 2020 it is supposed to revise the capacities of the existing network of hydrometeorological stations and the feasibility of its expansion by means of automatic weather stations ‘Inspector-Meteo’ (AWS-IM) and air quality transmitters ‘Vaisala’ AQT-420 available at three Ukrainian universities as a result of the Erasmus+ project ECOIMPACT, as well as acquisition of data from the network of automatic stations of the Ukrainian company IT-LYNX, which established a network of 55 AWS-IM for agribusiness purposes. The AWS-IM will expand the range of standard meteorological observations, and supplementation of it with models of environmental processes will make it possible to simulate the state of natural and man-made ecosystems in spatial and temporal scales.</p><p>It is additionally proposed to include AQT-420 transmitters available to the three Ukrainian universities due to the acquisition under the Erasmus+  project ECOIMPACT into the programme of monitoring air quality in large cities of Ukraine, with a view to the probable subsequent co-operation with the MegaSense project.</p><p>A detailed research plan of the Ukrainian participants for PEEX programme collaboration for the year 2020 is to be presented at the PEEX Inter- and Transdisciplinary Session at the EGU General Assembly.</p><p>Participation of Ukrainian universities, being the project partners in the PEEX educational subprogramme Transfer of Knowledge, is also important in order to provide training for a new generation of researchers in Ukraine who will use the new opportunities and tools gained over the course of implementation of the PEEX programme, including those ones that could be aimed at adaptation, mitigation of the climate change effects as well as dissemination of new knowledge and technologies acquired under the project to all concerned decision makers and the wider public.</p><div> <div> </div> </div>

IAGOS Research Infrastructure for Global-Scale Atmosphere Monitoring by Instrumented Passenger Aircraft

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Petzold ◽  
Valerie Thouret ◽  
Christoph Gerbig ◽  
Andreas Zahn ◽  
Martin Gallagher ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Air Quality ◽  
Relative Humidity ◽  
Water Vapour ◽  
Research Infrastructure ◽  
Good Resolution ◽  
European Research ◽  
Commercial Aircraft ◽  
High Quality

<p>IAGOS (www.iagos.org) is a European Research Infrastructure using commercial aircraft (Airbus A340, A330, and soon A350) for automatic and routine measurements of atmospheric composition including reactive gases (ozone, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds), greenhouse gases (water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane), aerosols and cloud particles along with essential thermodynamic parameters. The main objective of IAGOS is to provide the most complete set of high-quality essential climate variables (ECV) covering several decades for the long-term monitoring of climate and air quality. The observations are stored in the IAGOS data centre along with added-value products to facilitate the scientific interpretation of the data. IAGOS began as two European projects, MOZAIC and CARIBIC, in the early 1990s. These projects demonstrated that commercial aircraft are ideal platforms for routine atmospheric measurements. IAGOS then evolved as a European Research Infrastructure offering a mature and sustainable organization for the benefits of the scientific community and for the operational services in charge of air quality and climate change issues such as the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Services (CAMS) and the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). IAGOS is also a contributing network of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).</p> <p>IAGOS provides measurements of numerous chemical compounds which are recorded simultaneously in the critical region of the upper troposphere – lower stratosphere (UTLS) and geographical regions such as Africa and the mid-Pacific which are poorly sampled by other means. The data are used by hundreds of groups worldwide performing data analysis for climatology and trend studies, model evaluation, satellite validation and the study of detailed chemical and physical processes around the tropopause. IAGOS data also play an important role in the re-assessment of the climate impact of aviation.</p> <p>Most important in the context of weather-related research, IAGOS and its predecessor programmes provide long-term observations of water vapour and relative humidity with respect to ice in the UTLS as well as throughout the tropospheric column during climb-out and descending phases around airports, now for more than 25 years. The high quality and very good resolution of IAGOS observations of relative humidity over ice are used to better understand the role of water vapour and of ice-supersaturated air masses in the tropopause region and to improve their representation in numerical weather and climate forecasting models. Furthermore, CAMS is using the water vapour vertical profiles in near real time for the continuous validation of the CAMS atmospheric models. </p>

scholarly journals An Attack on the Separation of Powers? Strategic Climate Litigation in the Eyes of U.S. Judges

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8335
Author(s):  
Jasmina Nedevska
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
The United States ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
Climate Politics ◽  
The Social ◽  
Domestic Courts ◽  
Research Plan

Climate change litigation has emerged as a powerful tool as societies steer towards sustainable development. Although the litigation mainly takes place in domestic courts, the implications can be seen as global as specific climate rulings influence courts across national borders. However, while the phenomenon of judicialization is well-known in the social sciences, relatively few have studied issues of legitimacy that arise as climate politics move into courts. A comparatively large part of climate cases have appeared in the United States. This article presents a research plan for a study of judges’ opinions and dissents in the United States, regarding the justiciability of strategic climate cases. The purpose is to empirically study how judges navigate a perceived normative conflict—between the litigation and an overarching ideal of separation of powers—in a system marked by checks and balances.

scholarly journals Evolution of Burned Area in Forest Fires under Climate Change Conditions in Southern Spain Using ANN

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (19) ◽  
pp. 4155
Author(s):  
Pérez-Sánchez ◽  
Jimeno-Sáez ◽  
Senent-Aparicio ◽  
Díaz-Palmero ◽  
de Dios Cabezas-Cerezo
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Forest Fires ◽  
Southern Spain ◽  
Burned Area ◽  
Change Scenario ◽  
Absolute Deviation ◽  
Average Temperature ◽  
Mediterranean Regions ◽  
Artificial Neural Network Ann ◽  
Absolute Percent Error

Wildfires in Mediterranean regions have become a serious problem, and it is currently the main cause of forest loss. Numerous prediction methods have been applied worldwide to estimate future fire activity and area burned in order to provide a stable basis for future allocation of fire-fighting resources. The present study investigated the performance of an artificial neural network (ANN) in burned area size prediction and to assess the evolution of future wildfires and the area concerned under climate change in southern Spain. The study area comprised 39.41 km2 of land burned from 2000 to 2014. ANNs were used in two subsequential phases: classifying the size of the wildfires and predicting the burned surface for fires larger than 30,000 m2. Matrix of confusion and 10-fold cross-validations were used to evaluate ANN classification and mean absolute deviation, root mean square error, mean absolute percent error and bias, which were the metrics used for burned area prediction. The success rate achieved was above 60–70% depending on the zone. An average temperature increase of 3 °C and a 20% increase in wind speed during 2071–2100 results in a significant increase of the number of fires, up to triple the current figure, resulting in seven times the average yearly burned surface depending on the zone and the climate change scenario.

scholarly journals Implications of incorporating air-quality co-benefits into climate change policymaking

2010 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 014007 ◽  
Author(s):  
G F Nemet ◽  
T Holloway ◽  
P Meier
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Air Quality

Current Threats to the Environmental Conditions in Cities of the Eastern Mediterranean

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manfred A. Lange
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Air Quality ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Heat Waves ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Liquid Waste ◽  
Dust Storms ◽  
Urban Structures ◽  
Space Cooling

<p>The environmental conditions in urban settings are subject to processes and conditions within cities, on the one hand, and have a strong bearing on the overall conditions and the quality of life of the cities’ inhabitants, on the other. The built environment, in general, and buildings and infrastructure, in particular, play a major role in shaping the urban environment. At the same time, environmental conditions affect strongly the conditions within and outside of buildings.</p><p>The continued growth of cities in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle Eastern (EMME) region, the demise of environmental quality adds to the challenges faced by their inhabitants. Of the many factors contributing to these threats, climate change and its amplification in urban structures, the increasing load of pollutants in air and water and the rising numbers of dust storms as well as the growing amount of solid and liquid waste stand out.</p><p>The significant increase in the number of cars and the rising quantity of energy production has contributed to ever-worsening air quality in EMME cities. More specifically, urban road transport represents one of the major sources of air-borne pollutants in many of these cities and causes substantial threats to the health of their inhabitants.</p><p>The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and the EMME region are major sources of desert dust storms that travel north and east to Europe and Asia, thereby strongly affecting cities and their air quality in the EMME. Dust storms and suspended bacteria and viruses pose serious consequences to communities in the EMME region and are likely to worsen due to ongoing climate change.</p><p>Present and future changes in climate conditions will have numerous adverse effects on the EMME region, in general, and on EMME cities, in particular. This includes extended heat waves as well as enhanced water scarcity for inhabitants and green spaces. In combination with poor air quality, this will cause severe health risks for urban populations as well as the need for increased and extended periods of space cooling in private, commercial and municipal buildings. The greater needs for water and energy in urban structures are interrelated and have been described by the Water-Energy Nexus. The higher demand for water is increasingly satisfied through desalination, which is particularly energy-intensive. The need for additional space cooling during hot spells in cities will require more electricity.</p><p>The high rate of population growth, ever-increasing urbanization, changes in lifestyles and economic expansion in the EMME countries result in steadily increasing volumes of solid and liquid waste. The waste problems are exacerbated by the rising number of displaced persons and refugees in growing camps in some of the EMME countries, particularly, in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. The huge quantity of daily produced sewage sludge in Middle Eastern countries presents a serious challenge due to its high treatment costs and risks to the environment and human health.</p><p>This paper will address some of these challenges, which call for holistic and interdisciplinary efforts to design effective and sustainable adaptation strategies in EMME cities.</p>

Abstract 36: Mapping and Multilevel Modeling of Climate Change and Air Pollution With Risk of Stroke in the United States and China: Findings From the Drexel-SARI Low Carbon and Healthy City Study

Stroke ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 47 (suppl_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Longjian Liu ◽  
Hui Liu ◽  
Xuan Yang ◽  
Feng Jia ◽  
Mingquan Wang
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Air Pollution ◽  
Air Quality ◽  
Pollution Index ◽  
The United States ◽  
Potential Interaction ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Multilevel Regression ◽  
Healthy City ◽  
Nationally Representative

Introduction and Hypothesis: Stroke is a leading cause of death and the major cause of disability in the world. However, few studies applied multilevel regression techniques to explore the association of stroke risk with climate change and air pollution. In the study, we aimed to test the hypothesis that the disproportionately distributed stroke rates across the counties and cities within a country are significantly associated with air pollution and temperature. Methods: We used data from U.S. 1118 counties in 49 states, which had estimated measures of particulate matter (PM)2.5 for the years 2010-2013, and data from China 120 cities in 32 provinces (including 4 municipalities), which had measures of Air Pollution Index (API) for the years 2012-2013. We assessed the association between air quality and prevalence of stroke using spatial mapping, autocorrelation and multilevel regression models. Results: Findings from the U.S. show that the highest average PM2.5 level was in July (10.2 μg/m3) and the lowest in October (7.63 μg/m3) for the years 2010-2013. Annual average PM2.5 levels were significantly different across the 1118 counties, and were significantly associated with stroke rates. Multilevel regression analysis indicated that the prevalence of stroke significantly increased by 1.19% for every 10 μg/m3 increase of PM2.5 (p<0.001). Significant variability in PM2.5 by states was observed (p=0.019). More than 70% of the variation in stroke rates existed across the counties (p=0.017) and 18.7% existed across the states (p=0.047). In China, the highest API was observed in the month of December, with a result of 75.76 in 2012 and 97.51 in 2013. The lowest API was observed in July, with a result of 51.21 in 2012, and 54.23 in 2013. Prevalence of stroke was significantly higher in cities with higher API concentrations. The associations between air quality and risk of stroke were significantly mediated by temperatures. Conclusions: The study, using nationally representative data, is one of the first studies to address a positive and complex association between air quality and prevalence of stroke, and a potential interaction effect of temperatures on the air - stroke association.

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