Air pollution

1. Air pollution Impact of industrialization

2. What is air pollution? • Undesirable gases, soilids and particulates are added to the atmosphere • Causing chemical modifications and climatic changes

3. Sources of air pollution • Thermal power stations • Iron and steel making • Oil refinery • Mineral smelting or refining • Chemical industries

4. Gases • Water vapour from industrial chimneys + high RH / light winds  condenses on dust particles and poisonous gases  smog • Result: respiratory diseases and lung cancer

5. Carbon dioxide • CO2 Admit short-wave radiation but impede passage of long-wave radiation  increased the absorption of solar radiation  greenhouse effect  global warming…etc • From burning of fossil fuels, e.g. coal

6. Carbon monoxide • CO = a toxic gas  coughing and breathing difficulties • Incomplete combustion of carbonaceous fossil fuels (coal, petroleum, natural gas)  CO • From vehicular fume associated with the transport of industrial goods

7. Sulphur dioxide • May mix with water to form sulphuric acid  smog + acid rain • Also from combustion of coal or petroleum • May accumulate above industrial areas  air pollution disaster • London smog of 1952

8. Nitric oxide and nitrogen oxide • Caused by industrial combustion in high temperature • Common in electricity generation plants and many complex processing industries which use very large energy conversion processes • Can affect visibility • Combines with water  nitric acid

9. Dust particles • Produced by saw milling, furniture making, cement making, textile spinning, feature processing, mining and quarrying • Workers  prolonged exposure to airborne particles  pneumoconiosis • Smog formation + condensation

10. Radioactive materials • Given out by power plants at times of accident • Highly toxic concentrations over a large area

11. How serious is the air pollution problem? Pearl River Delta • there is an exponential rise in nitrogen oxides, sulphur oxides and carbon dioxides emissions due to increase in number of motor vehicles and industries in the province. • Lung-cancer mortality among humans is between 17-31 cases per 100,000 inhabitants a year in the cities, compared with 4-5 for national average. (CEN, 1997) • In PRD, an average of 35.6 out of every 100,000 people now die of lung cancer, while the rate of death due to respiratory diseases has been a nearly 25% increase over the last 10 years.

12. How serious is the air pollution problem? Chernobyl disaster • In the early hours of 26 April 1986, one of four nuclear reactors at the Chernobyl power station exploded. • Moscow was slow to admit what had happened, even after increased radiation was detected in other countries. • The lack of information led to exaggerated claims of the number killed by the blast in the immediate area. • Contamination is still a problem, however, and disputes continue about how many will eventually die as a result of the world's worst nuclear accident.

13. A bright red spot at lower left center marks the burning core of a reactor at Chornobyl, in Ukraine, a month after history’s worst nuclear accident on April 26, 1986.

14. Chernobyl Disaster

15. How serious is the air pollution problem? London smog 1952 • From December 5 to 8, 1952, London experienced the worst air pollution disaster ever reported • The meteorological conditions were ideal for a pollution. Fireplaces and industries supplied the hygroscopic condensation nuclei into the air to form dense fog. • The daily temperatures were below the average. With such adverse conditions the concentrations of pollutants reached high values. • With these adverse conditions, elderly people were particulary effected. Deaths from bronchitis increased by a factor of 10, influenza by 7, pneumonia by 5, tuberculosis by 4.5, other respiratory diseases by 6, heart diseases by 3 and lung cancer by 2.

16. A London policeman wears a face mask to protect himself from smog during the winter of 1952.

17. A soupy haze of polluted air settles over São Paulo, Brazil.

18. Dark smoke rises from a fire at a petrochemical complex south of Volgograd in southern European Russia, 1996. The fire must have just started, because the smoke has not yet risen to the level of cumulus clouds in the area, one of which overlies it.

19. Dead and dying forests downwind from two power plants in what is now the Czech Republic appear as a long, dark orange scar in this false-color satellite image. Black stands indicate healthier trees. Wind carries air pollutants to distant points where they may fall as acid rain, a phenomenon that has damaged thousands of acres in Eastern Europe.

20. Numerous oil wells set afire by retreating Iraqis burn in Kuwait in 1991 after the Persian Gulf War. Clouds of oily soot rose to 22,000 feet while oil spread across the water, adding environmental devastation to the misery of war.

21. Bright blue coastal zones at left indicate mangroves in otherwise densely populated Bangkok. Claiming nearly seven million people—though the actual number may be much higher—the capital of Thailand is severely polluted and may have the world’s worst traffic.

22. Can we do something to stop air pollution? • There's so much pollution in the air now that if it weren't for our lungs there'd be no place to put it all. Robert Orben

23. References • http://www.nationalgeographic.com/eye/ozone/ozone.html