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Global Air Pollution, From Above
neutron_p writes "Based on satellite observations, the high-resolution global atmospheric map of nitrogen dioxide pollution makes clear just how human activities impact air quality. I'm a bit surprised not to see that many red blobs above US and the strange one is on the east of Russia."
note how the red areas are somewhat similar to the light areas on the nasa night map
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
Um, no, that's largely China and maybe the Korean peninsula, although it does extend far enough to the North to encompass Vladivostok I think. Still, I suppose they have a better excuse than we do here Europe... That big red blob is mainly over the lowlands of Holland and surrounding areas, so it's either tulips or the output from the "coffee" shops of Amsterdam. I'm thinking it's probably not the tulips. ;)
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
this link works
The blob over Canada looks to me more like it's over the industrial sections of the Northeast, particularly the steel belt running from Ohio through Pennsylvania. I know the steel producers are regularly villified for pumping evil into the air, so perhaps this is just one more of them.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
This doesn't actually impact NO2 levels, but it does explain some of the pollution reduction.
The primary reason that you don't see this type of pollution in the US is that the federal and local governments have taken a very agressive stance on NOx and SOx reduction from transportation (cars, trucks, and trains) and power plant (coal) sources. Some here have complained that the attack on these pollutants (along with particulate emission) has a lot to do with our lower fuel economy standards, as the rules make it pretty difficult, for instance, to introduce diesel powered cars, and they mandate the use of catalytic converters.
It isn't hard to understand why this has happened, either. NOx and SOx are the primary drivers of acid rain and smog, both of which directly and visibly impact quality of life in densely populated areas, like cities. Fixing them isn't something we have fought against, since the vast majority of Americans work and live in or near major cities, even in the "sparsely populated" parts of the country.
Western Europe on the other hand has chosen to go after consumption, and driven up fuel efficiency at the cost of reducing these types of pollutants. Given that Europeans tend to live in smaller, more distributed communities than Americans, smog, while a problem in Urban areas, directly impacts fewer people on a day to day basis than it does here.
Are we looking at different images, or are the commenters just as ignorant of geography as the average slashdot reader is ignorant, of, say, the mating rituals of the human species? Or have we been overrun by neocons?
The single biggest blot, other than the one over everybody's favorite red menace, is square over the northeastern US. The richest country pollutes more than anyone except the country that does all of the richest country's dirty work (and has more people than everyone else combined, to boot).
LATFI! (look at the _ucking image!)
This looks like a relatively professional study: the maps on the website are a composite of 18 months worth of data. This is good methodology to ensure that anomalies are removed (unusual smog days, lightnings storms, etc).
This map is a measure of the vertical density of NO2 in a given column (represented by the area of each pixel on the original image, which is dependant on the camera).
One misleading thing: There is no mention of the climatological effects of the world's mountain ranges, and thus the prevailing winds. This is clearly illustrated along the Himilayas in India and the Andes mountains in South America. The topography is clearly causing bottlenecks in the distribution and dispersion of air. Thus, the map is not necessarily an indicator of where the actual pollution was produced. Naturally, in locations where airflow is reduced, the vertical profile of ANY gas concentration will be higher.
I'd predict you'll even see some similar patterns in global precipitation maps if you were to overlay the two.
(disclaimer: yes I am a prefessional geographer)
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
If you accept that human emissions of greenhouse gasses contribute to global warming (which it sounds like you do) then you'd also agree that we have to do something about stopping it. The developed countries including the US should be the ones leading the charge away from greenhouse gas emissions. This is for no other reason than it's the developed countries that are best able to afford the changes to power plants, fuel efficient cars, etc.
We've already done the exact same thing with Ozone depleting chemicals with the Montreal Protocol in 1987. The developed countries largely payed for the technology development for safer ozone depleting gasses and the developing countries get a bit more time to implement it. If developing countries don't, you're in a lot better position to start imposing sanctions, trade policies, etc to try to get them to do so. If you just sit on your hands and do nothing, that's probbably what you're going to get.
AccountKiller
Uranium ore is about as common as silver. Not everywhere, but common enough. The big item in use of fuel is whether breeder reactors are used or not. By using a breeder reactor, you will only slightly (or not) enrich it, and you will use much less fuel in proportion to the energy put out (due to the production and later fission of plutonium). The use of such reactors is purely a political problem.
Additionally, due to the extreme energy density of uranium, it is feasable to 'mine' the oceans if the near-surface deposits on Earth were exhausted. It would require some energy to find the trivial amount of uranium dissolved in a ton of seawater, but it would ultimately come ahead in terms of energy produced. And unless noone has ever told you, the oceans have probably about 100x as much uranium dissolved in them as we can find in near-surface deposits.
Additionally, its theoretically possible that by the time we exhaust the near-surface uranium, we will be able to do deep mining (>5 km) and tap additional resources. Since the Earth becomes denser towards its center, the deeper that we mine, the more probable it is to find a uranium deposit.
Regarding Jay's points on the Bush environment record:
1) Air quality has improved because of the inertia from previous policies put in place by both major parties. Automotive polution controls and smokestack scrubbers, et al, have continued to work, and as old cars and factories go off line, the net effect is improvement. The current administration is taking credit for the effect of policies they'd like to scale back.
2) Bad fire seasons come in cycles, beyond the control of people. How bad is under their control, based on the nature of their forest management. The Forest and Park Services have been practicing 'controlled' burns for twenty years, doing what we used to let nature do at random. Unfortunately, random burns caused by weather and assholes have stayed ahead of the forest management budget. So...
The Bush Administration looked to have the private sector help out by clearing out dead and dying crap that really gets a fire going. At issue was that these policies were written by lobbists from the lumber industry. Sure, they'd be subject experts, but also motivated to take their best shot at harvesting the good with the bad.
The assumption among policy opponents is that the forest industry was just using this as a chance to cut without much oversight, since just about all western forests are stressed and a fire hazard due to prolonged drought, water diversions, and urban encroachment.
Luke, help me take this mask off