PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Travelling pollution

East Asian human activities affect air quality in remote tropical forests

Travelling pollution
2015-03-31
(Press-News.org) Researchers from the UK and Malaysia have detected a human fingerprint deep in the Borneo rainforest in Southeast Asia. Cold winds blowing from the north carry industrial pollutants from East Asia to the equator, with implications for air quality in the region. Once there, the pollutants can travel higher into the atmosphere and impact the ozone layer. The research is published today in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, an open access journal of the European Geosciences Union (EGU).

Rainforests are often associated with pure, unpolluted air, but in Borneo air quality is very much dependent on which way the wind blows. "On several occasions during northern-hemisphere winter, pockets of cold air can move quickly southwards across Asia towards south China and onward into the South China Sea," says Matthew Ashfold, Assistant Professor at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus.

In a new study, Ashfold and his team show that these 'cold surges' can very quickly transport polluted air from countries such as China to remote parts of equatorial Southeast Asia. "The pollution travels about 1000 km per day, crossing the South China Sea in just a couple of days," states Ashfold, who was based at the University of Cambridge, UK, when he conducted parts of the study.

The researchers were initially looking for chemical compounds of natural origin: they wanted to test whether the oceans around Borneo were a source of bromine and chlorine. They designed their experiments to measure these gases, but also detected another gas called perchloroethene, or perc, in the air samples they collected from two locations in the Borneo rainforest. "This gas is a common 'marker' for pollution because it does not have natural sources," says Ashfold.

The team wanted to find out where the man-made gas came from, and where it might go. "We used a UK Met Office computer model of atmospheric transport to look back in time, at where the air samples we collected had travelled from." Their experiments suggested the high levels of perc in the air samples were influenced by East Asian pollution, as reported in the Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics study.

Perc is produced in a number of industrial and commercial activities, such as dry cleaning and metal degreasing, and exposure to large amounts (above about 100 parts per million) can affect human health. While global emissions of perc have declined in the past 20 years or so, it is not clear whether this has been the case in East Asia, where air pollution has increased over the past couple of decades.

The researchers say the levels of perc measured in Borneo are low, at a few parts per trillion. But because the gas does not occur naturally, even small concentrations are a sign that other more common pollutants, such as carbon monoxide and ozone, could be present. Ozone, for example, can damage forests when in high concentrations, as it reduces plant growth.

Indeed, the team's measurements showed the amounts of perc varied strongly over the course of about a week, and models they analysed indicated this variation to be related to similar changes in carbon monoxide and ozone. "During the one 'cold surge' event we studied in detail, levels of these pollutants over Borneo appeared to be double typical levels," Ashfold points out.

But diminished air quality in the remote rainforest is not the only way East Asia pollution affects the tropics. "The atmosphere over Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific is home to unusually strong and deep thunderstorms during the northern hemisphere winter. Because of this, the region is an important source of air for the stratosphere," says Ashfold.

In their study the researchers show that, once in the deep tropics, the polluted air is lifted towards the upper atmosphere. "This can introduce a range of industrial chemicals with atmospheric lifetimes of just a few months to the stratosphere, which could have a potentially negative impact on the ozone layer."

INFORMATION:

Please mention the name of the publication (Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics) if reporting on this story and, if reporting online, include a link to the paper (TBA) or to the journal website.


[Attachments] See images for this press release:
Travelling pollution Travelling pollution 2

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Moving upstream to promote a healthier nation

2015-03-31
WASHINGTON-- The Society for Public Health Education (SOPHE) proudly announces the publication of a Health Education & Behavior (HE&B) supplement devoted to the latest research and practice on policy and environmental approaches to foster healthy communities. The April 2015 supplement, "The Evidence for Policy and Environmental Approaches to Promoting Health," comprises a dozen peer-reviewed articles and two perspectives examining the state-of-the-evidence on what's working and what's needed at the community, institutional and societal levels to promote good health across ...

World first study reveals antibodies that may trigger psychosis in children

2015-03-31
A world first study revealing the presence of two antibodies in a sub-group of children experiencing their first episode of psychosis affirms a longstanding recognition that auto-immune disorders play a significant role in psychiatric illness. Antibodies defend the body against bacterial, viral, and other invaders but sometimes the body makes antibodies that attack healthy cells. In these cases, autoimmune disorders develop. These include conditions such as multiple sclerosis (MS), rheumatoid arthritis and Type 1 diabetes. This 'immune hypothesis' is supported by new ...

Pig-borne disease most likely jumped into humans when rearing practices changed

2015-03-31
Almost every pig carries harmless strains of the S. suis bacterium - such strains are known as 'commensal' strains. However, a more virulent group of strains of the bacteria also exist, which cause disease in pigs worldwide and are a major driver of antibiotic use for prevention. Increasingly, this group of strains is also implicated in serious human diseases such as meningitis and septicaemia. In order to understand the genetic basis of disease in S. suis, an international study, led by the Bacterial Respiratory Diseases of Pigs-1 Technology (BRaDP1T) consortium, examined ...

How a deadly fungus evades the immune system

2015-03-31
New research from the University of Toronto has scientists re-thinking how a lethal fungus grows and kills immune cells. The study hints at a new approach to therapy for Candida albicans, one of the most common causes of bloodstream infections. Previously, scientists thought that Candida albicans spread by changing from a single, round cell to a long string of cells, or filaments. They thought this shape change allowed the fungus to move through the bloodstream and let its filaments penetrate tissues and destroy immune cells. But the new study, published today in Nature ...

Generous welfare benefits make people more likely to want to work, not less

2015-03-31
Survey responses from 19,000 people in 18 European countries, including the UK, showed that "the notion that big welfare states are associated with widespread cultures of dependency, or other adverse consequences of poor short term incentives to work, receives little support." Sociologists Dr Kjetil van der Wel and Dr Knut Halvorsen examined responses to the statement 'I would enjoy having a paid job even if I did not need the money' put to the interviewees for the European Social Survey in 2010. In a paper published in the journal Work, employment and society they ...

Kids allowed to 'sip' alcohol may start drinking earlier

2015-03-31
PISCATAWAY, NJ - Children who get a taste of their parents' wine now and then may be more likely than their peers to start drinking by high school, according to a new report in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. Researchers found that, of 561 students in a long-term study, those who'd "sipped" alcohol by sixth grade were five times more likely than their peers to down a full drink by the time they were in high school. And they were four times more likely to have binged or been drunk. The findings do not prove that early sips of alcohol are to blame, said lead ...

Ob/Gyn experts recommend 'ultrasound first' for imaging the female pelvis

2015-03-31
Philadelphia, PA, March 31, 2015 - Ultrasound technology has evolved dramatically in recent years. A group of noted obstetricians and gynecologists maintain that ultrasound is more cost-effective and safer than other imaging modalities for imaging the female pelvis and should be the first imaging modality used for patients with pelvic symptoms. Writing in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology and supporting an American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine (AIUM at http://www.AIUM.org) initiative, they urge practitioners to "put ultrasound first." In 2012, the ...

Innovative strategies needed to address the US transplant organ shortage

2015-03-31
As the United States faces transplant waiting lists that continue to grow longer over time, there is increasing debate about the proper way to incentivize living donations. Transplant professionals are trying to find ways to eliminate any financial disincentives without crossing the line to paying for organs. A new article published in the American Journal of Transplantation highlights possible solutions discussed by leaders within the American Society of Transplantation (AST) and the American Society of Transplant Surgeons (ASTS) at a recent workshop. Due to organ shortages, ...

Impact of domestic violence on women's mental health

2015-03-31
This news release is available in French. In addition to their physical injuries, women who are victims of domestic violence are also at a greater risk of mental health problems such as depression and psychotic symptoms. These are the findings of a study that was just published by a team of researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King's College London in England, the Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal (IUSMM), and the University of Montreal. "We studied the impact of domestic violence on the risk of mental ...

Wearable technology can help with public speaking

2015-03-30
Speaking in public is the top fear for many people. Now, researchers from the Human-Computer Interaction Group at the University of Rochester have developed an intelligent user interface for "smart glasses" that gives real-time feedback to the speaker on volume modulation and speaking rate, while being minimally distracting. The Rochester team describes the system, which they have called Rhema after the Greek word for "utterance," in a paper that will be presented on Tuesday, March 31 at the Association for Computer Machinery's Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI) conference ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Thirty-year mystery of dissonance in the “ringing” of black holes explained

Less intensive works best for agricultural soil

Arctic rivers project receives “national champion” designation from frontiers foundation

Computational biology paves the way for new ALS tests

Study offers new hope for babies born with opioid withdrawal syndrome

UT, Volkswagen Group of America celebrate research partnership

New Medicare program could dramatically improve affordability for cancer drugs – if patients enroll

Are ‘zombie’ skin cells harmful or helpful? The answer may be in their shapes

University of Cincinnati Cancer Center presents research at AACR 2025

Head and neck, breast, lung and survivorship studies headline Dana-Farber research at AACR Annual Meeting 2025

AACR: Researchers share promising results from MD Anderson clinical trials

New research explains why our waistlines expand in middle age

Advancements in muon detection: Taishan Antineutrino Observatory's innovative top veto tracker

Chips off the old block

Microvascular decompression combined with nerve combing for atypical trigeminal neuralgia

Cutting the complexity from digital carpentry

Lung immune cell type “quietly” controls inflammation in COVID-19

Fiscal impact of expanded Medicare coverage for GLP-1 receptor agonists to treat obesity

State and sociodemographic trends in US cigarette smoking with future projections

Young adults drive historic decline in smoking

NFCR congratulates Dr. Robert C. Bast, Jr. on receiving the AACR-Daniel D. Von Hoff Award for Outstanding Contributions to Education and Training in Cancer Research

Chimpanzee stem cells offer new insights into early embryonic development

This injected protein-like polymer helps tissues heal after a heart attack

FlexTech inaugural issue launches, pioneering interdisciplinary innovation in flexible technology

In Down syndrome mice, 40Hz light and sound improve cognition, neurogenesis, connectivity

Methyl eugenol: potential to inhibit oxidative stress, address related diseases, and its toxicological effects

A vascularized multilayer chip reveals shear stress-induced angiogenesis in diverse fluid conditions

AI helps unravel a cause of Alzheimer's disease and identify a therapeutic candidate

Coalition of Autism Scientists critiques US Department of Health and Human Services Autism Research Initiative

Structure dictates effectiveness, safety in nanomedicine

[Press-News.org] Travelling pollution
East Asian human activities affect air quality in remote tropical forests