Oceanographic and biogeochemical drivers cause divergent trends in the nitrogen isoscape in a changing Arctic Ocean

Nitrogen stable isotopes (δ¹⁵N) are used to study food web and foraging dynamics due to the step-wise enrichment of tissues with increasing trophic level, but they rely on the isoscape baseline that varies markedly in the Arctic due to the interplay between Atlantic- and Pacific-origin waters. Using a hierarchy of simulations with a state-of-the-art ocean-biogeochemical model, we demonstrate that the canonical isotopic gradient of 2–3‰ between the Pacific and Atlantic sectors of the Arctic Ocean has grown to 3–4‰ and will continue to expand under a high emissions climate change scenario by the end of the twenty-first century. δ¹⁵N increases in the Pacific-influenced high Arctic due to increased primary production, while Atlantic sector decreases result from the integrated effects of Atlantic inflow and anthropogenic inputs. While these trends will complicate longitudinal food web studies using δ¹⁵N, they may aid those focussed on movement as the Arctic isoscape becomes more regionally distinct.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13280-021-01635-6.     

An assessment of the impact of climate change on air quality at two UK sites

Possible effects of climate change on air quality are studied for two urban sites in the UK, London and Glasgow. Hourly meteorological data were obtained from climate simulations for two periods representing the current climate and a plausible late 21st century climate. Of the meteorological quantities relevant to air quality, significant changes were found in temperature, specific humidity, wind speed, wind direction, cloud cover, solar radiation, surface sensible heat flux and precipitation. Using these data, dispersion estimates were made for a variety of single sources and some significant changes in environmental impact were found in the future climate. In addition, estimates for future background concentrations of NO_x, NO₂, ozone and PM₁₀ upwind of London and Glasgow were made using the meteorological data in a statistical model. These showed falls in NO_x and increases in ozone for London, while a fall in NO₂ was the largest percentage change for Glasgow. Other changes were small. With these background estimates, annual-average concentrations of NO_x, NO₂, ozone and PM₁₀ were estimated within the two urban areas. For London, results averaged over a number of sites showed a fall in NO_x and a rise in ozone, but only small changes in NO₂ and PM₁₀. For Glasgow, the changes in all four chemical species were small. Large-scale background ozone values from a global chemical transport model are also presented. These show a decrease in background ozone due to climate change. To assess the net impact of both large scale and local processes will require models which treat all relevant scales.     

Green Lawfare: Environmental Public Interest Litigation and Mediatized Environmental Conflict

Communication strategies involving news media and environmental groups are well documented and research into protest politics and other forms of environmental communication has made considerable progress in the analysis of the strategies that various actors use to influence environmental policy. There is less scholarship, however, on the journalistic representation of the legal strategies employed by environmental non-government organizations, such as the mediatized debates about the use of law by these groups and the laws themselves. Further, while legal scholarship observes the role of public interest litigation in environmental matters, the role of news media as an influential force in public opinion formation and mobilization in the context of environmental litigation as an activist strategy remains less understood. Using the 2015 “green lawfare” debate in Australia that followed a successful Australian Federal Court challenge to a coalmine, this paper argues that the “mediatized visibility” inherent in public interest litigation is an important, but mostly overlooked, element of mediatized environmental conflict.     

Hurricanes and hegemony: A qualitative analysis of micro-level climate change denial discourses

The climate change countermovement and its program of climate change denial have been well documented and studied. However, individual rationales for rejecting climate science remain under-studied. Twitter data related to Hurricane Sandy in 2012 are used to understand why individuals reject the orthodox climate consensus, using a summative content analysis of climate change denial discourses. Three major discourses are discovered: rejecting climate science because climate science is a conspiracy favoring growth of government; opposing renewable energy and energy taxation; and expressing fear of governmental abuse of power. Importantly, each discourse expressed certainty that climate science itself was a wholesale fraud; the denial discourses themselves focused far more on climate politics than on science.     

Survey of arsenic and its speciation in rice products such as breakfast cereals, rice crackers and Japanese rice condiments

Rice has been demonstrated to be one of the major contributors to arsenic (As) in human diets in addition to drinking water, but little is known about rice products as an additional source of As exposure. Rice products were analyzed for total As and a subset of samples were measured for arsenic speciation using high performance liquid chromatography interfaced with inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (HPLC-ICP-MS). A wide range of rice products had total and inorganic arsenic levels that typified those found in rice grain including, crisped rice, puffed rice, rice crackers, rice noodles and a range of Japanese rice condiments as well as rice products targeted at the macrobiotic, vegan, lactose intolerant and gluten intolerance food market. Most As in rice products are inorganic As (75.2-90.1%). This study provides a wider appreciation of how inorganic arsenic derived from rice products enters the human diet.     

Occupant injury severity from lateral collisions: A literature review

Problem

Side impacts are a serious automotive injury problem; they represent about 30% of all fatalities for passenger vehicle occupants. This literature review focuses on occupant injuries resulting from real lateral collisions. It emphasizes the interaction between injury patterns and crash factors, taking into account type of injuries and their severity. It highlights what is known on the subject and suggests further studies.

Method

We reviewed papers identified by searches in two electronic databases for the 1996-2009 publication period, and in specific journals and conference proceedings.

Results

Studies on the Primary Direction of Force (PDOF) have revealed that fatal crashes occur most frequently when the PDOF is at 3 or 9 o'clock. The risk of serious injury is two to three times higher for the near-side occupant than for the far-side occupant. Head injuries predominate in oblique impacts and thoracic injuries in perpendicular ones. A few results are also reported on side airbag protection.

Conclusions

This literature review presents an overall picture of the injuries caused by lateral collisions, though each of the papers or articles examined focuses mostly on some particular aspect of the problem. The incidence of specific injuries depends on the data source used. Very few population-based analyses of lateral collision injuries were found.

Impact on industry

New studies are needed to evaluate new protective devices (e.g., lateral airbags, inflatable curtains). Without interfering with their care duties, Emergency Medical Technicians could be systematically trained to observe the collision's specific characteristics and to report all their relevant observations to the emergency physicians to increase the likelihood of prompt diagnosis and proper care.     

Photolysis of fluometuron in the presence of natural water constituents

Phototransformation of the herbicide fluometuron (1 microM) in natural sunlight was investigated in neutral Milli-Q water and in synthetic waters containing either fulvic acids, nitrate ions or both in order to mimic reactions taking place in aquatic environments. Fluometuron degradation followed a pseudo-first order kinetics. The reaction was faster in synthetic than in Milli-Q water. Fulvic acids (10 mg l(-1)) increased the rate of fluometuron photolysis by a factor 2.5 and nitrates (25 mg l(-1)) by a factor 15. Identification of major photoproducts was conducted under laboratory conditions using LC-ESI-MS. Numerous photoproducts were detected and tentatively characterized. In the presence of nitrates, hydroxylation of the aromatic ring with or without hydrolysis of CF(3) into CO(2)H and oxidation of the urea chain leading to demethylation were observed. In the presence of fulvic acids, hydroxylation of the aromatic ring was the major reaction route.     

Dependence of home outdoor particulate mass and number concentrations on residential and traffic features in urban areas

The associations between residential outdoor and ambient particle mass, fine particle absorbance, particle number (PN) concentrations, and residential and traffic determinants were investigated in four European urban areas (Helsinki, Athens, Amsterdam, and Birmingham). A total of 152 nonsmoking participants with respiratory diseases, not exposed to occupational pollution, were included in the study, which comprised a 7-day intensive exposure monitoring period of both indoor and home outdoor particle mass and number concentrations. The same pollutants were also continuously measured at ambient fixed sites centrally located to the studied areas (fixed ambient sites). Relationships between concentrations measured directly outside the homes (residential outdoor) and at the fixed ambient sites were pollutant-specific, with substantial variations among the urban areas. Differences were more pronounced for coarse particles due to resuspension of road dust and PN, which is strongly related to traffic emissions. Less significant outdoor-to-fixed variation for particle mass was observed for Amsterdam and Birmingham, predominantly due to regional secondary aerosol. On the contrary, a strong spatial variation was observed for Athens and to a lesser extent for Helsinki. This was attributed to the overwhelming and time-varied inputs from traffic and other local sources. The location of the residence and traffic volume and distance to street and traffic light were important determinants of residential outdoor particle concentrations. On average, particle mass levels in suburban areas were less than 30% of those measured for residences located in the city center. Residences located less than 10 m from a street experienced 133% higher PN concentrations than residences located further away. Overall, the findings of this multi-city study, indicated that (1) spatial variation was larger for PN than for fine particulate matter (PM) mass and varied between the cities, (2) vehicular emissions in the residential street and location in the center of the city were significant predictors of spatial variation, and (3) the impact of traffic and location in the city was much larger for PN than for fine particle mass.     

Grain-size analysis of volcanic ash for the rapid assessment of respiratory health hazard

Volcanic ash has the potential to cause acute and chronic respiratory diseases if the particles are sufficiently fine to enter the respiratory system. Characterization of the grain-size distribution (GSD) of volcanic ash is, therefore, a critical first step in assessing its health hazard. Quantification of health-relevant size fractions is challenging without state-of-the-art technology, such as the laser diffractometer. Here, several methods for GSD characterization for health assessment are considered, the potential for low-cost measurements is investigated and the first database of health-pertinent GSD data is presented for a suite of ash samples from around the world. Methodologies for accurate measurement of the GSD of volcanic ash by laser diffraction are presented by experimental analysis of optimal refractive indices for different magmatic compositions. Techniques for representative sampling of small quantities of ash are also experimentally investigated. GSD results for health-pertinent fractions for a suite of 63 ash samples show that the fraction of respirable (<4 microm) material ranges from 0-17 vol%, with the variation reflecting factors such as the style of the eruption and the distance from the source. A strong correlation between the amount of <4 and <10 microm material is observed for all ash types. This relationship is stable at all distances from the volcano and with all eruption styles and can be applied to volcanic plume and ash fallout models. A weaker relationship between the <4 and <63 microm fractions provides a novel means of estimating the quantity of respirable material from data obtained by sieving.