Air Pollution I

Potential Test Questions:

1. List six of the major classes of air pollutants and
describe their sources and effects.

2. Relate the adverse health effects of four specific air

pollutants and explain why children are particularly
susceptible to air pollution.

3. Explain the differences between primary and secondary

air pollutants.
 Potential Test Questions:

4. Discuss the problem of the global distillation of

pollutants.

5. Summarize the influential changes that have occurred in

air quality due to the Clean Air Act.

6. Discuss the differences between industrial and

photochemical smog.
 Examples of Catastrophic Air Pollution
1911 in London - 1150 died from the effects of coal smoke.
Author of the report coined the word smog for the mix of
smoke and fog that hung over London.
1952 in London - 4000 died from smog.
1948 in Donora, Penn. Town of
14,000 people - 20 died and 6000
were ill from smog from the
community's steel mill, zinc smelter,
and sulfuric acid plant.
1963 in New York City - 300 people died from air
pollution.
 London
Smog 1952
 London Smog 1952
In 13th century London - laws
against burning outside
because London was already
heavily polluted since the
middle ages
 London
Smog 1952
 London
Smog 1952
Piccadilly – Noon 1955
 Sources of Air Pollution
According to the 1997 EPA
report on air quality:
Coal-Burning Power Plants
are the Single Largest
Source of Air Pollution!

In terms of volume and variety of contaminants emitted,

no other single pollution source comes close. Nationally,
annual power plant emissions are responsible for 36% of
carbon dioxide pollution, 64% of sulfur dioxide
pollution, 26% of nitrogen oxide pollution, and 34% of
mercury pollution in the USA.
March 23,
2003
Earth
Smog
May 7,
2002
 Los
Angeles
Houston
An active adult inhales 10,000 to 20,000 liters of air
each day, or 7 to 14 liters every minute.
Effects of Air Pollution on Human Health

Contrary to popular belief, death as a result of a smog

siege is often not a result of air pollutant poisoning, but
rather, a result of increasing susceptibility to diseases.

By and large, children, asthmatics, people with chronic

respiratory or pulmonary and heart disease, and the
elderly are the most susceptible to air pollutants.
Effects of Air Pollution on Human Health
Because the lungs of children are not yet fully
developed and because children inhale more air per
unit of body weight than adults, they are prone to
greater health effects as well as long-term damage to
the lungs.

Similarly, because asthmatics and those suffering

from chronic diseases are already in a weakened state,
smog adds stress to their bodies. For the elderly,
smog increases their susceptibility to viral and
bacterial attacks, as both lung and immune system
functions decrease with age.
 Effects of Air Pollution on Plants
Air pollution commonly leads to oxidation damage of
both crop plants and wild species.
 Effects of Air Pollution on Plants
Air pollution weakens plants by damaging their
leaves, limiting the nutrients available to them, or
exposing them to toxic substances slowly released
from the soil. Quite often, injury or death of plants is
a result of these
effects of acid rain
in combination with
one or more
additional threats.
 Effects of Pollution on Buildings
For limestone, the acidic water reacts with the calcium to
form calcium sulfate:

CaCO3 + H2SO4 CaSO4 + 2H+ + CO32-

The calcium sulfate is soluble so it is easily washed away

during the next rain storm.

Statue carved in 1702

photographed in 1908
(left) and 1969 (right).
 Costs of Pollution

Health: $36 billion in sickness annually - health care and

lost work.

Agriculture: up to 10% of nation's crops lost to all forms

of pollution.

Materials: corrosion - $5.5 billion annually.

Contribution of Climate - Inversion
Layers
Contribution of Climate - Inversion
Layers
 Types of Smog

Industrial smog = the gray air in industrial cities in

cold winter areas, caused from burning fossil fuel.

Industrial smog is in the forms of dust, smoke, soot,

ashes, asbestos, oil, lead, heavy metals, and sulfur
oxides.

In 1952, industrial smog held in place by a thermal

inversion caused the 4,000 deaths in London.
 Types of Smog

Photochemical smog = brown and smelly, found in

large cities in warm climates.

Most are the result of gases from auto exhaust.

This is the type of smog that hangs over Los

Angeles or Houston and causes air quality warnings
many days each year.
Photochemical Smog
Industrial Smog
Mexico City Smog
 Types of Air Pollution
Primary air pollutants: harmful chemicals that enter directly
into the atmosphere.
Secondary air pollutants: harmful chemicals that form from
other substances in the atmosphere.
 METEOROLOGY AND AIR
POLLUTION
• Meteorology specifies what happen to puff
or plume of pollutants from the time it is
emitted to the time it is detected at some
other location.
• The motion of the air causes a dilution
of air pollutant concentration and we would
like to calculate how much dilution occurs as
a function of the meteorology or atmospheric
condition.
 MET AND POLLUTION
CONTD
• Air pollutants emitted from anthropogenic
sources must first be transported and diluted
in the atmosphere before these under go
various physical and photochemical
transformation and ultimately reach their
receptors.
• Otherwise, the pollutant concentrations
reach dangerous level near the source of
• emission.
 MET AND AIR POLLUTION
• Hence, it is important that we understand
the natural processes that are responsible
for their dispersion.
• The degree of stability of the atmosphere in
turn depends on the rate of change of
ambient temperature with altitude
VERTICAL DISPERSION OF
POLLUTANTS
• As a parcel of air in the atmosphere rises, it
experiences decreasing pressure and thus
expands.
• This expansion lowers the temperature of
the air parcel, and there fore the air cools as
it rises.
• The rate at which dry air cools as it rises is
called the dry adiabatic lapse rate and is
independent of the ambient air temperature.
VERTICAL DISPERSION OF
POLLUTANTS
• The term adiabatic means that there is no
heat exchange between the rising parcel of
air under consideration and the surrounding
air
• The dry adiabatic lapse rate can be
calculated from the first law of
thermodynamics (1°C per 100m)
• As the air parcel expands, it does work on
the surroundings.
VERTICAL DISPERSION OF
POLLUTANTS
• Since the process is usually rapid, there is
no heat transfer between the air parcel and
the surrounding air.
Saturated adiabatic lapse rate,
(Γs)
• Unlike the dry adiabatic lapse rate,
saturated adiabatic lapse rate is not a
constant, since the amount of moisture that
the air can hold before condensation begins
is a function of
temperature.
• A reasonable average value of the moist
adiabatic lapse rate in the troposphere is
about 6°C/Km.
 Temperature lapse rate and
stability
• The ease with which pollutants can disperse
vertically into the atmosphere is largely
determined by the rate of change of air
temperature with altitude
• For some temperature profiles the
air is stable, that is, air at a given altitude has
physical forces acting on it that make it want
to remain at that elevation.
 Temperature lapse rate and
stability
• Stable air discourages the dispersion and
dilution of pollutants.
• For other temperature profiles, the air is
unstable.
• In this case rapid vertical mixing takes
place that encourages pollutant dispersal
and increase air quality.
• Obviously, vertical stability of the
atmosphere is an important factor that helps
 Temperature lapse rate and
stability
determine the ability of the atmosphere to
dilute emissions; hence, it is crucial to air
quality.
• Let us investigate the relationship between
atmospheric stability and temperature. It is
useful to imagine a “parcel” of
 Temperature lapse rate and
stability
air being made up of a number of air
molecules with an imaginary boundary
around them.
• If this parcel of air moves upward in the
atmosphere, it will experience less pressure,
causing it to expand and cool.
• On the other hand, if it moves dawn ward,
more pressure will compress the air and its
temperature will increase
 Temperature lapse rate and
stability
• As a starting point, we need a relationship
that expires an air parcel’s change of
temperature as it moves up or down in the
atmosphere.
• As it moves, we can imagine its temperature,
pressure and volume changing, and we might
imagine its surrounding adding or subtracting
energy from the parcel.
If we make small changes in these quantities,
 Temperature lapse rate and
stability
and apply both
• the ideal gas law and the first law of
thermodynamics, it is relatively
straightforward to drive the following
expression
• dQ=CpdT –VdP
 Temperature lapse rate and
stability
• Where: dQ = heat added to the parcel per
unit mass (J/kg)
• Cp = Specific heat at a constant pressure
(1005J/Kg-oC)
• dT= Incremental temperature change(oC)
• V = volume per unit mass (m3/kg)
• dP = Incremental pressure change in the
parcel(Pa)
 Temperature lapse rate and
stability
• Let us make the quite accurate assumption
that as the parcel moves, there is no heat
transferred across its boundary, that is, that
this process is adiabatic
• This means that dQ = 0; so we can
rearrange as Dt/Dp=V/CP