Local Sources Take Brunt of Blame for Ground-level Aerosol Pollution
A
new National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) study
estimates that most ground-level particulate matter pollution in the
United States stems from regional sources in North America and only a
small amount is brought to the country from other parts of the world.
Researchers using an innovative global aerosol tracking model have
for the first time produced a global estimate of sources and movements
of aerosols near the ground where they can affect human health and run
afoul of environmental regulations, NASA announced on Nov. 16.
Previously, researchers studying aerosols moving between continents
focused primarily on tracking a single type of aerosol, such as dust or
black carbon, or measuring their quantities throughout the atmosphere.
This left gaps in understanding where ground-level particulate
pollution comes from.
"This is the first study to comprehensively consider the origin,
composition and type of fine particles over the United States and
connect them to both domestic and foreign sources." said Mian Chin, an
atmospheric scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt,
Md., and lead author of the study.
Aerosols are airborne particulate matter that arise from both human
sources, such as burning fossil fuels, and natural sources, such as
fires, dust and volcanoes. They also are a major source of near-ground
pollution. Since 1970, particulate matter has been regulated in the
United States by the Clean Air Act. A more recent concern has been
aerosols that arrive to the states from distant shores carried by the
wind.
Chin and colleagues set out to investigate how much and what type of
aerosols made the intercontinental journey in 2001. The team employed
the help of a computer model using known air chemistry and wind
patterns to trace a region's aerosols -- everything from fossil fuel
and biofuel combustion, biomass burning, and volcanic sources, desert
dust and sea salt -- back to their sources.
"Using the model, we followed the path of aerosols to find out how
much is local and how much is from outside a region," Chin said.
Chin and colleagues estimate that between 65 percent to 70 percent
of surface particulate matter in the eastern U.S. originates from
regional pollution aerosols from fuel combustion in North America. They
also found that 30 percent to 40 percent of fine particulates in the
western U.S. come from local pollution sources. The model results
estimated that just 2 percent to 6 percent of U.S. surface fine
particulate matter come from fuel combustion particles emitted outside
of North America, including Asia and Europe. About 50 percent of
surface fine particulate matter in the western United States stems from
a natural source: dust transported from Asia or from local deserts and
organic aerosols from vegetation.
"Our results indicate that controlling regional pollution emissions
will be the most effective and most responsible way to manage U.S. air
quality," Chin said.
For more information, go to http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/particulate_pollution.html.