The Chinese Solar Machine Layer by Layer Fire in the Library The Mystery Behind Anesthesia
A hazy day: The MODIS instrument captured a thick swath of smog or dust (or both) over the Sea of Japan on March 11. The image shows the plume blowing off the coasts of China, North Korea, and South Korea, and heading toward Japan. The plume is a translucent dingy gray contrasting with the bright white clouds to the east.
NASA
NASA has quantified the amount of pollution that moves from East Asia to North America.
Atmospheric scientists have long known that air pollution travels vast distances and is a global phenomenon. Now researchers at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center have conducted the first-ever satellite-based measurements of pollution aerosols transported from East Asia to North America.
The researchers looked at four years of satellite data and found the amount of pollution arriving in North America to be equivalent to 15 percent of local emissions of the United States and Canada. It is "a significant number," says Hongbin Yu, an associate research scientist at the University of Maryland, in Baltimore, who is working at NASA Goddard and led the study.
"This means that any reduction in our emissions may be offset by the pollution aerosols coming from East Asia and other regions," says Yu. The new study will be published in April in the American Geophysical Union's Journal of Geophysical Research.
The study was conducted from 2002 to 2005, using measurements from a satellite instrument called the moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard NASA's Terra satellite. The instrument measures the reflective solar radiation and emitted thermal radiation from the earth's surface and atmosphere.
The satellite-based instrument can look at 36 different wavelengths of the solar-terrestrial spectrum, and it does so with better spatial resolution than previous satellite instruments, says Lorraine Remer, a physical scientist and a member of the MODIS science team at Goddard.
For the study, the researchers measured the reflected solar radiation at seven different wavelengths. Being able to see different colors of the spectrum allows the researchers to differentiate the types of particles more accurately than the older sensors, says Remer.
"Some particulates are absorbing things like black carbon that come out of diesel exhaust, making it a black color," says Ronald Prinn, a professor of atmospheric sciences and the director of the Center for Global Change Science at MIT. "Particles that are produced from sulfur that comes from the burning of coal are very bright white. You can look at the multiple colors ... and get information about composition and density as well."
The instrument is able to distinguish between man-made pollution and naturally occurring particles based on size. Naturally occurring dust and sea salt are typically larger than aerosol particles emitted from combustion sources, forest fires, automobiles, and industry, says Remer.
The MODIS instrument works by scanning a broad swath of the earth--about 2,300 kilometers--and counting the number of photons it is receiving by turning them into electrical signals. The instrument can measure the entire earth in one day.
MODIS does a better job than aircraft instrumentation does because it can observe the earth all the time, capturing events that only happen occasionally and accumulating them over the whole year, says Richard Honrath, a professor in the department of civil and environmental engineering at Michigan Technological University, in Houghton. "We can only do continuous measurements at ground level, but then you only see events that hit the ground," he says.
More importantly what effect are all these polution particles having on our weather/climate ? This is cloud seeding on an unprecedented scale .
We need a "pollution tax", and more...
All those cheap goods being imported from Asia are in fact the products of unprecedented "corner cutting" practiced by those countries.
They cut costs exactly on the issues on which Western democracies have worked for generations to turn wild capitalism into a humane, sustainable capitalism. We wanted clean rivers, lakes etc. and enacted environmental controls. They have none of that. Their rivers are sewage. We wanted clean air, and enacted preventive measures for it. Again they have none of that. Their air is the most polluted on earth. We wanted high living standards, so we brought in humane working hours and conditions, health care...They work as slaves for 12 hours a day in unsafe, unhealthy conditions for meager wages.
Obviously our civilized requirements add up as business costs (=burden), while their corner cutting adds up as "competitive advantage". Yet every time you buy a cheap Asian product and you think you "got a deal", you're in fact shooting yourself in the foot. It gives companies the incentive to outsource even more jobs (maybe yours too), and to neglect all the values on which Western society is based.
Asia?!?! What about accross our Southern Border... that doesn't have to travel over an ocean...
The 'ethical blame game' in transboundary pollution is not as simple as we would like it to be. The fact is, the US transfers technology to, and is heavily invested in most growing economies around the world. For that reason it must accept moral responsibility for the trans-national pollution that its investments cause.
Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.
This document is part of the “How-To Guide for Most Common Measurements” centralized resource portal. This tutorial provides a detailed guide for measurement and device considerations to take temperature measurements using thermocouples. Get an introduction to thermocouples, which are inexpensive sensing devices widely used with PC-based data acquisition systems. Also review some specific thermocouple examples and learn how thermocouples work and ways to integrate them into a data acquisition measurement system.
View full PDF >
boustrephon
49 Comments
Exported Pollution
We should probably not forget that some of that pollution exists to make the cheap goods that we buy (it would be interesting if someone could estimate how much) and that people local to the polluting plants actually suffer more from it.
Yes... we really do need global solutions.
Reply
Deragor
1 Comment
Re: Exported Pollution
Instant Karma
American exports to China are quietly rising at an even more rapid pace. Would it surprise you to learn that a lot of those exports are ... junk?
http://www.slate.com/id/2173594/
Reply