Search results for "Airborne"
showing 10 items of 56 documents
Overview: On the transport and transformation of pollutants in the outflow of major population centres - Observational data from the EMeRGe European …
2022
Megacities and other major population centres (MPCs) worldwide are major sources of air pollution, both locally as well as downwind. The overall assessment and prediction of the impact of MPC pollution on tropospheric chemistry are challenging. The present work provides an overview of the highlights of a major new contribution to the understanding of this issue based on the data and analysis of the EMeRGe (Effect of Megacities on the transport and transformation of pollutants on the Regional to Global scales) international project. EMeRGe focuses on atmospheric chemistry, dynamics, and transport of local and regional pollution originating in MPCs. Airborne measurements, taking advantage of …
Impact of 70 years urban growth associated with heavy metal pollution
2014
Historical trends in trace element deposition were analyzed using herbaria specimens. We determined Al, Fe, Mg, Mn, Ca, Na, P, K, S, As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn contents in leaves of eight specimens collected in 1941. To assess changes, we collected the same plants from a botanical garden in 2012. The concentrations of major elements showed large species variability. However, temporal trends were predominately detected for heavy metals. The Cd, Ni and Cr contents in the 2012 leaves were 10, 13 and 16 times higher, respectively, than in 1941. Urban activities have substantially raised the levels of these metals in urban atmospheres due to changes in human activities over 70 years of urban …
Occurrence of platinum, palladium and gold in pine needles of Pinus pinea L. from the city of Palermo (Italy)
2003
Abstract Preliminary data on the presence of Pt, Pd and Au in airborne particulate matter from the urban area of Palermo (Sicily, Italy) are presented. They were obtained by analysing 40 samples of pine needles (Pinus pinea L.) collected in and around the city. Observed concentrations range from 1 to 102 μg/kg for Pt, 1 to 45 μg/kg for Pd and 22 to 776 μg/kg for Au. Platinum and Pd concentrations in pine needles are up to two orders of magnitude higher than their crustal abundances. They exhibit a high statistical correlation (R2=0.74) which suggests a common origin. Precious metal concentrations measured within the city centre are much higher than those occurring outside the town. The dist…
High efficacy of face masks explained by characteristic regimes of airborne SARS-CoV-2 virus abundance
2021
Abstract Airborne transmission is an important transmission pathway for viruses, including SARS-CoV-2. Regions with a higher proportion of people wearing masks show better control of COVID-19, but the effectiveness of masks is still under debate due to their limited and variable efficiencies in removing respiratory particles. Here, we analyze experimental data and perform model calculations to show that this contrast can be explained by the different regimes of abundance of particles and viruses. Because of the large number of particles exhaled during human respiration and vocalization, indoor environments are usually in a particle-rich regime which means that masks cannot prevent the inhal…
Profiles and seasonal distribution of airborne fungi in indoor and outdoor environments at a French hospital
2009
International audience; A one-year prospective survey of fungal air contamination was conducted in outdoor air and inside two haematological units of a French hospital. Air was sampled with a portable Air System Impactor. During this period of survey, the mean viable fungal load was 122.1 cfu/m(3) in outdoor air samples, and 4.1 and 3.9 cfu/m(3) in samples from adult and pediatric haematology units, respectively. In outdoor samples, Cladosporium was the dominant genus (55%) while in the clinical units, Penicillium sp. (23 to 25%), Aspergillus sp. (15 to 23%) and Bjerkandera adusta (11 to 13%) were the most frequently recovered airborne fungi. The outdoor fungal load was far higher in autumn…
Quantification of land-atmosphere exchanges of water, energy and carbon dioxide in space and time over the heterogeneous Barrax site
2008
International audience; To advance our understanding of land-atmosphere exchanges of water, energy and carbon dioxide (CO2) in space and time over heterogeneous land surfaces, two intensive field campaigns were carried out at the Barrax agricultural test site in Spain during 12-21 July 2004 (SPARC 2004) and 8-14 July 2005 (SEN2FLEX 2005) involving multiple field, satellite and airborne instruments for characterizing the state of the atmosphere, the vegetation and the soil from the visible to the microwave range of the spectrum. Part of the experimental area is a core site of area 25 km2, within which numerous crops are grown, on both irrigated and dry land, alongside fields of bare soil. Th…
High‐resolution 3D forest structure explains ecomorphological trait variation in assemblages of saproxylic beetles
2022
1. Climate, topography and the 3D structure of forests are major drivers affecting local species communities. However, little is known about how the specific functional traits of saproxylic (wood-living) beetles, involved in the recycling of wood, might be affected by those environmental characteristics. 2. Here, we combine ecological and morphological traits available for saproxylic beetles and airborne laser scanning (ALS) data in Bayesian trait-based joint species distribution models to study how traits drive the distributions of more than 230 species in temperate forests of Europe. 3. We found that elevation (as a proxy for temperature and precipitation) and the proportion of conifers p…
The formation, properties and impact of secondary organic aerosol: Current and emerging issues
2009
Hallquist, M. Wenger, J. C. Baltensperger, U. Rudich, Y. Simpson, D. Claeys, M. Dommen, J. Donahue, N. M. George, C. Goldstein, A. H. Hamilton, J. F. Herrmann, H. Hoffmann, T. Iinuma, Y. Jang, M. Jenkin, M. E. Jimenez, J. L. Kiendler-Scharr, A. Maenhaut, W. McFiggans, G. Mentel, Th. F. Monod, A. Prevot, A. S. H. Seinfeld, J. H. Surratt, J. D. Szmigielski, R. Wildt, J.; Secondary organic aerosol (SOA) accounts for a significant fraction of ambient tropospheric aerosol and a detailed knowledge of the formation, properties and transformation of SOA is therefore required to evaluate its impact on atmospheric processes, climate and human health. The chemical and physical processes associated wit…
Twenty Years of Airborne Water Vapor and Total Water Measurements of a Diode Laser Based Photoacoustic Instruments
2020
We present relevant issues collected over twenty years of development and operation of an airborne water vapour / total water detector based on photoacoustic spectroscopy. The WaSulHygro instrument possesses high selectivity, short response time, and wide dynamic range, that are key requirements against trace gas measurement systems for applications in atmospheric sciences. Besides the major properties of WaSul-Hygro we discuss our efforts to develop a robust instruments that have proved its long-term reliability over the last fifteen years operating on-board a commercial aircraft within the framework of the CARIBIC project.2
Estimation of forest stand characteristics using individual tree detection, stochastic geometry and a sequential spatial point process model
2022
Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) results in point-wise measurements of canopy height, which can further be used for Individual Tree Detection (ITD). However, ITD cannot find all trees because small trees can hide below larger tree crowns. Here we discuss methods where the plot totals and means of tree-level characteristics are estimated in such context. The starting point is a previously presented Horvitz–Thompson-like (HT-like) estimator, where the detectability is based on the larger tree crowns and a tuning parameter that models the detection condition. We propose a new method which is based on modeling the spatial pattern of hidden tree locations using a sequential spatial point process mo…