A small fish found aboard a boat that washed ashore in Washington state on March 22, 2013. The boat was a Japanese skiff that may have been set loose by the 2011 Japan tsunami.
By Stephanie Pappas LiveScience
The strangest stowaways yet have arrived on U.S. shores via debris possibly from the 2011 Japan tsunami: Live fish.
The fish, which live off the coast of Japan and Hawaii, apparently made their way across the Pacific in a drifting 18-foot (5.5 meter) skiff. Of the five fish that made the journey, one is still alive and is being kept at the Seaside Aquarium in Oregon.
"These fish could have been originally from Japanese waters, or they could have been picked up going close by the Hawaii coast," said Allen Pleus, the aquatic invasive species coordinator at the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
This is the first time live vertebrates (animals with backbones) have been found in tsunami debris.
A fishy discovery When the devastating tsunami hit Japan in March 2011, it dragged some 5 million tons of debris into the Pacific Ocean, according to Japanese government estimates. Most of this likely sunk immediately, but about 1.5 million tons floated away from Japan's coastlines.
No one knows how much of that is still adrift, but pieces of tsunami debris have been washing ashore in Alaska, British Columbia and along the U.S. West Coast and Hawaiian islands ever since. Some of this debris has harbored potential invasive species, most notably two floating docks that beached in Washington and Oregon. [Images: Tsunami Dock in Remote Washington]
Allen Pleus (WDFW)
A submerged compartment in the back of the boat provided a refuge for five striped beakfish.
But those docks held plant life and invertebrates such as limpets and barnacles. Fish, much less live ones, are a rare find. The fish were found in a back compartment of a small fiberglass boat called the Saisho-Maru, which was discovered March 22 near Long Beach, Wash.
The Japanese government has not yet confirmed that the skiff was lost in the tsunami, but it has a registration number from the region where the wave hit, Pleus told LiveScience. The boat floated partially submerged with its stern a few feet under the ocean's surface, and the lidless compartment became a "little cave" where the fish could hide, Pleus said.
The boat also hosted algae, several crabs, marine worms, a sea cucumber (never found before on other debris, Pleus said), scallops and blue mussels. All told, it was a perfect mini-ecosystem for the stowaway fish. [See images of the stowaway species]
"In this particular case, the water conditions were right and the boat landed upright and was basically washed ashore," Pleus said. "It had a nice 20- to 30-gallon aquarium intact in the back."
A local found the boat and scooped up one of the fish, taking it to Long Beach's City Hall. City officials got in touch with Washington Fish and Wildlife biologists, who euthanized the rest of the fish for study. The survivor stayed at city hall until officials there called in Keith Chandler, the general manager of the Seaside Aquarium in Seaside, Ore.
The 5-inch-long (12 centimeters) fish "was in a bucket in their office, and they didn't know what to do with it," Chandler told LiveScience.
Chandler identified the fish?as a striped beakfish (Oplegnathus fasciatus), also known as a barred knifejaw. Striped beakfish live in reefs off Japan and are rarely spotted in other tropical waters.
Invasive species threat The surviving fish is now in a quarantine tank at the Seaside Aquarium, where staff is trying to get it to eat, Chandler said. He's hoping to put the fish on display with permission from Oregon's Department of Fish and Wildlife.
"We're trying different things to feed it," he said.
The rest of the fish were sent to Oregon State University, where biologists will analyze their ear bones to determine their age and also look at their stomach contents and reproductive status.
"The reproductive status and age will help us figure out if they rode the entire way from Japan starting over 2 years ago, or most likely they came from Hawaii," Pleus said. Even from Hawaii, the fish would have survived a journey of nearly 3,000 miles (4,828 km). [Tracking Japan's Tsunami Debris (Infographic)]
It's unlikely that any fish that escaped the boat will survive in the cool waters off the Washington and Oregon coastlines, Pleus said. Had the boat landed further south, it's possible the fish could have established themselves.
The fish discovery changes the way biologists will have to think about invasive species?from Japanese debris, Pleus said. At first, scientists assumed that no species would survive a more than 5,000-mile (8,047 km) journey across the Pacific. When the docks laden with marine life washed up in Washington and Oregon, they realized they were wrong.
But researchers still thought that to support life, an object would have had to have been sitting in the water, accumulating an ecosystem, before the tsunami hit. The newly discovered skiff and other small finds suggest this isn't the case, Pleus said.
"A lot of these species were attached after the tsunami, while it was still in Japanese coastal waters," he said. "There are a lot of larvae that are floating around looking for something solid to attach to."
Finally, researchers have believed that only big objects, such as docks, could support enough life to support a robust colony, Pleus said. The boat torpedoes that theory, too.
"You get these sort of Noah's Arks of large docks that come in with huge assemblages of species, and they're definitely a threat," he said. "But when you look at the number of smaller debris with fewer organisms, if you put it all together, it's an equal or possibly even greater threat than the really large objects that come to shore."
Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter?and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook?andGoogle+. Original article on LiveScience.com.
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An investigation is ongoing in the shooting death of a Fort Knox civilian employee Wednesday. Authorities have said the attack was not random and that they are "investigating a personal incident." ?
By Bob Driehaus,?Reuters / April 4, 2013
New Army recruits train on the bayonet course at Fort Knox in 2004. A nonrandom shooting was reported on the U.S. Army base on Wednesday, killing one man.
Newscom/File
Enlarge
A man who worked as a civilian?Army?employee was shot to death on Wednesday in a parking lot at the?Fort Knox U.S. Army?base in?Kentucky?in an incident that prompted a security lockdown there, officials said.
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Authorities said the shooting was "not a random act" and the shooter remained at large on Wednesday night.
The shooting, which came less than two weeks after a U.S. Marine shot dead two colleagues at a?Virginia?base, occurred on Wednesday afternoon outside the U.S.?Army?Human Resources Command headquarters, the?Army?said in a statement.
The victim, an employee of the?Army?Human Resources Command, was transported by ambulance to?Ireland Army Community Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, the?Army?said.
"Special Agents from the U.S.?Army?Criminal Investigation Command are investigating a personal incident and not a random act of violence,"?Chris Grey, spokesperson for the independent?Army?investigative agency, said in the statement.
Fort Knox's gates were locked down to all inbound and outbound traffic as a standard security measure, the?Army?said. The main gate was reopened an hour later.
Fort Knox, near?Louisville, is home to more than 40,000 U.S. military personnel, family members and civilian employees.
Mary Trotman, an FBI spokeswoman in?Louisville, said two agents were sent to Fort Knox?to assist with the probe.
The?Army?said police were "interested in speaking" with a man who may be using a black Yamaha motorcycle for transportation.
Police in surrounding jurisdictions had earlier been asked by Fort Knox?officials to be on the lookout for a man driving a four-door brown car with tinted windows who may have driven off the base, said?Bryce Shumate, spokesman for the police department in nearby Radcliff.
The name of the dead man is being withheld until 24 hours after family notification.
The incident came less than two weeks after a U.S. Marine shot two colleagues to death at the Marine Corps base in?Quantico,?Virginia, before killing himself.
In February, local media reported that a soldier and his wife died of gunshot wounds at their home on the base in what the?Army?said appeared to be the result of a domestic dispute.
(Reporting by Bob Driehaus in?Cincinnati?and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Writing by Cynthia Johnston and Mary Wisniewski; Editing by Will Dunham)
PAGO PAGO, American Samoa (AP) ? A tiny Samoa airline is giving passengers a big reason to lose weight: tickets sold not by the seat, but by the kilogram.
Samoa Air planned on Wednesday to start pricing its first international flights based on the weight of its passengers and their bags. Depending on the flight, each kilogram (2.2 pounds) costs 93 cents to $1.06.
That means the average American man weighing 195 pounds with a 35-pound bag would pay $97 to go one-way between Apia, Samoa, and Pago Pago, American Samoa. Competitors typically charge $130 to $140 roundtrip for similar routes.
The weight-based pricing is not new to the airline, which launched in June. It has been using the pricing model since November, but in January the U.S. Department of Transportation approved its international route between American Samoa and Samoa.
The airline's chief executive, Chris Langton, said Tuesday that "planes are run by weight and not by seat, and travelers should be educated on this important issue. The plane can only carry a certain amount of weight and that weight needs to be paid. There is no other way."
Langton, a pilot himself, said when he flew for other airlines, he brought up the idea to his bosses to charge by weight, but they considered weight as too sensitive an issue to address.
"It's always been the fairest way, but the industry has been trying to pack square pegs into round holes for many years," he said.
Travelers in the region already are weighed before they fly because the planes used between the islands are small, said David Vaeafe, executive director of the American Samoa Visitors Bureau. Samoa Air's fleet includes two nine-passenger planes for commercial routes and a three-passenger plane for an air taxi service.
Langton said passengers who need more room will be given one row on the plane to ensure comfort.
The new pricing system would make Samoa Air the first to charge strictly by weight, a change that Vaeafe said is, "in many ways... a fair concept for passengers."
"For example, a 12- or 13-year-old passenger, who is small in size and weight, won't have to pay an adult fare, based on airline fares that anyone 12 years and older does pay the adult fare," he said.
Vaeafe said the pricing system has worked in Samoa but it's not clear whether it will be embraced by travelers in the U.S. territory.
Langton said the airline has received mixed responses since it began promoting the pricing on its website and Facebook.
Langton said some passengers have been surprised, but no one has refused to be weighed yet. He said he's given away a few free flights to some regular customers who lost weight, and that health officials in American Samoa were among the first to contact the airline when the pricing structure was announced.
"They want to ride on the awareness this is raising and use it as a medium to address obesity issues," he said.
Islands in the Pacific have the highest rates of obesity in the world. According to a 2011 report by the World Health Organization, 86 percent of Samoans are overweight, the fourth worst among all nations. Only Samoa's Pacific neighbors Nauru, the Cook Islands and Tonga rank worse.
In comparison, the same study found that 69 percent of Americans are overweight, 61 percent of Australians, and 22 percent of Japanese. Samoa ranked just as poorly in statistics measuring those who are obese, or severely overweight.
Samoa's Director General of Health, Palanitina Toelupe, said the airline's plans could be a good way to promote weight loss and healthy eating.
"It's a very brave idea on their part," she said.
She added that flying on the airline may become too expensive for some large people and that the charging system could only ever be a small part of a larger strategy on weight issues. She said she'd be interested in meeting with the airline to discuss working together.
Ana Faapouli, an American Samoa resident who frequently travels to Samoa, said the pricing scheme will likely be profitable for Samoa Air.
"Samoa Air is smart enough to find ways to benefit from this service as they will be competing against two other airlines," Faapouli said.
Pago Pago-based Inter Island Airways and Polynesian Airlines, which is owned by the Samoa government, also run flights between the country and American Samoa.
You know a chess piece when you see one. They might be the most recognizable objects in gaming. But they didn't always look that way. In fact, for the longest time they didn't even look a way. The Smithsonian Magazine dug into the roots of that iconic design and it's not as old as you might think. More »
The Been There Online Lecture Series is a series of inspired interactive conversations with experienced community accountable scholars offering their lessons learned while navigating multiple institutions and putting their brilliance to work with and in honor of oppressed communities. These lectures are open to scholars, writers, activists and folks in all walks of life ready to be inspired!
Been There Lecture #2? Dr. Anjail Ahmad? Tuesday, April 16th 7pm ET/6 CT/ 5 MT/4 PT
Dr. Ahmad is a poet, educator and activist writing, speaking and teaching in venues throughout the United States. She received her PhD in African American Literature and 20th Century American Poetry from the University of Missouri-Columbia, her MA in Creative Writing from New York University and her BA in Creative Writing from Agnes Scott College.
She is also a blind woman advocating for disability justice in collaboration with a diverse community of disabled activists in Greensboro, NC and a Mobile Homecoming superstar.
Her areas of interest include: African American Literature and Oral Traditions; Twentieth Century American Poetry; The Poetics of Resistance in African American Poetry; Spoken Word and the poetics of Performance; Poetic Entrepreneurship; E-Texts and Publication; Women?s Voices; Social Justice and Disability Rights Advocacy
She has written two books of poetry, is published widely in journals and has won numerous awards. She teaches writing classes at North Carolina A&T State University where she is also Director of Creative Writing. In 2010, she has used her depth of writing knowledge and experience in working with writers to found The Fractured Writer: A Creative Resource for Writers (http://www.thefracturedwriter.com). She also leads writing and publishing workshops and sees clients in her home office in Greensboro, North Carolina where she offers training, coaching, consulting, and mentorship to groups and individuals of all ages.
As Artistic Director of The Fractured Writer aka The Loving Boot Camp for Writers, she leads writers through the Sunday 5-Week Writing Intensives, a year-long, workshop series designed to support writers through the completion of a writing project.? In her unique approach to creative writing, she offers a blend of spirituality and creative pragmatism to writers seeking to transform their creative ideas? and aspirations into work suitable for publication and performance.
This workshop is free for one-on-one and cohort coaching clients.? Other geniuses are free to sign up for the lecture with an email about your interests to brillianceremastered@gmail.com by April 14th and a donation of $20-50 to Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind
Contact: Emil Venere venere@purdue.edu 765-494-4709 Purdue University
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. A new study shows clean-air regulations have dramatically reduced acid rain in the United States, Europe, Japan and South Korea over the past 30 years, but the opposite is true in fast-growing East Asian megacities, possibly due to lax antipollution rules or lack of enforcement.
The U.S. Clean Air Act began requiring regulatory controls for vehicle emissions in the 1970s, and 1990 amendments addressed issues including acid rain. Similar steps in the European Union, Japan and South Korea over the past three decades have reduced nitrate and sulfate in rain - components contributing to acid rain, said Suresh Rao, Lee A. Reith Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering and Agronomy at Purdue University.
The effects of acid rain can propagate through aquatic ecosystems such as lakes, rivers and wetlands and terrestrial ecosystems including forests and soils, negatively impacting ecological health.
Researchers have now used publicly accessible data, collected weekly or monthly at numerous monitoring sites during the period from 1980-2010, to track "wet deposition" of nitrate and sulfate near several U.S. and East Asian cities. The pollutants, products of fossil fuel combustion, are emitted by cars, trucks and buses. Pollutants rise up into the atmosphere and accumulate until being washed down as wet deposition by rain or snow or as "dry deposition" between rain events.
Fast-growing cities in East Asia that lack regulations or enforcement show a dramatic rise in acid rain, according to the new study completed by Purdue researchers.
"Our analysis of wet deposition (acid rain) data provides compelling evidence that clean-air policies and enforcement of environmental regulations are profoundly important," Rao said.
The findings of the study are detailed in a research paper published in the journal Atmospheric Environment. The article is accessible online and will appear in the May issue. It was co-authored by civil engineering postdoctoral researchers Jeryang Park and Heather Gall and by Rao and Dev Niyogi, Indiana state climatologist and an associate professor in the Purdue Department of Agronomy and the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences.
Severe problems with air pollution also are evident in particulate matter (PM) concentrations contributing to smog. In a recent study published in the Lancet journal, PM pollution was the fourth-leading risk factor for death in China and may be linked to 1.2 million premature deaths in 2010. Similar problems exist in cities in India, where air pollution is estimated to contribute to about 600,000 premature deaths, according to the Lancet study.
"We are in an urban era with more people staying in cities than ever before in the history of mankind," Niyogi said. "The impact cities can have on the environment we find is a function of growing population and affluence, and more importantly how regulations are shaped and implemented. As a result of regulations and enforcement, what goes up as emissions is now much smaller, and that means what comes down as acid rain also is much smaller. Every car now has a catalytic converter that reduces tailpipe emissions. So, adoption of highly efficient control technologies, as uniformly as we do across the United States, has resulted in lower emissions. In essence, we've solved the acid rain problem through good environmental regulations and wide adoption of mitigation technologies."
The Purdue study findings show that even though rainfall patterns vary widely from one city to another, the annual average rate of nitrate and sulfate found in wet deposition is essentially the same across the United States.
"That was a surprise," Rao said. "Because rainfall patterns vary so much from one location to another, you would think wet deposition also would vary. Yet, it's the same across the United States, and that's because we have regulations and enforcement and engineering solutions to control emissions."
However, the same homogeneity is not seen in several large fast-growing cities in East Asia, where high wet deposition rates match high, unregulated emissions.
"This is the same thing that transpired in the United States in the period leading up to the 1970s," Rao said. "We had rapid urban growth, rising emissions and rising wet deposition, which is analogous to what's happening now in places like Beijing and New Delhi."
For example, the concentration of nitrate and sulfate in rainwater in the Chinese city of Xi'an is 10 times greater than in New York City.
The reduction in wet deposition in U.S. cities is especially significant considering that the time period also was marked by dramatic growth in gross domestic product, urban population and the number of vehicles.
"This is encouraging," Gall said. "When mitigation strategies are widely adapted, it is possible for cost-effective engineering solutions to protect the environment while simultaneously allowing people to maintain the same quality of life."
The researchers have developed a model that can be used to simulate and predict how wet deposition rates vary across megacities located in diverse climatic regions, such as arid or humid.
"Given certain emissions and rainfall patterns, we can now project how wet deposition rates would increase initially and then decrease when and if regulations are in place," Rao said. "Additionally, the model can be used to examine wet deposition rates under climate-change scenarios."
The study findings also have implications for variations in wet deposition rates under shifting weather resulting from climate-change scenarios, as well as rapid urbanization in emerging economies.
Although annual wet deposition patterns are influenced by variability in rainfall amounts both within a year and from year to year, the effects are much greater when pollutant-emission regulation is weak. For example, even though Xi'an, China, is predicted to become drier in the future due to climate changes, the data and modeling analysis revealed that long-term climate oscillations like El Nino and La Nina cycles could induce dramatic increases in the concentration of pollutants in rainfall, ultimately leading to increased wet deposition of pollutants.
"This implies that when regulations are inadequately implemented, climate change could result in much larger impacts on the environment," said Park, the article's lead author.
Future work will shift focus to sub-Saharan Africa, where major growth is anticipated later in the century.
"The majority of the newest megacities will be in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, and that's where the biggest economic development will be," Park said.
###
Writer: Emil Venere, 765-494-4709, venere@purdue.edu
Sources: Suresh Rao, 765-496-6554, pscr@purdue.edu
Dev Niyogi, 765-494-6574, climate@purdue.edu
ABSTRACT
Temporal Trajectories of Wet Deposition Across Hydro-Climatic Regimes: Role of Urbanization and Regulations at U.S. and East Asia Sites
Jeryang Parka, Heather E. Galla, Dev Niyogib,c, P. Suresh C. Raoa,c,*
a School of Civil Engineering, Purdue University
b Department of Earth and Atmospheric Science
c Agronomy Department
Dominant global patterns of urbanization and industrialization contribute to large-scale modification of the drivers for hydrologic and biogeochemical processes, as evident in Asia, Africa and South America, which are experiencing rapid population and economic growth. One manifestation of urbanization and economic development is decreases in air quality, increases in dry/wet deposition fluxes, and growing adverse impacts on public health and ecosystem integrity. We examined available long-term (1980-2010) observational data, gathered at weekly intervals, for wet deposition at 19 urban sites in the U.S., and monitoring data (2000-2009) available for 17 urban sites at a monthly scale in East Asia. Our analyses are based on data for four constituents (SO4, NO3, Ca2+, and Mg2+); differences in atmospheric chemistry and terrestrial sources of these constituents enabled a robust comparative analysis. We examined intra-annual variability and the long-term temporal trajectories of wet deposition fluxes to discern the relative role of anthropogenic and stochastic hydro-climatic forcing. Here, we show that: (1) temporal variability in wet deposition fluxes follows an exponential probability density function at all sites, evidence that stochasticity of rainfall is the dominant control of wet deposition variability; (2) the mean wet deposition flux, ? (M/L2/T), has decreased in the U.S. over time since enactment of the Clean Air Act, with ? having become homogenized across varying hydro-climatic regimes; and (3) in contrast, ? values for East Asian cities are 3-10 times higher than U.S. cities, attributed to lax regulatory enforcement. Based on the observed patterns, we suggest a stochastic model that generates ellipses within which the ? temporal trajectories are inscribed. In the U.S., anthropogenic forcing (regulations) is dominant in the humid regions, while variability in hydro-climatic forcing explains inter-annual variability in arid regions. Our stochastic analysis facilitates projections of the temporal trajectory shifts in wet deposition fluxes as a result of urbanization and other land-use changes, climate change, and regulatory enforcement.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Contact: Emil Venere venere@purdue.edu 765-494-4709 Purdue University
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. A new study shows clean-air regulations have dramatically reduced acid rain in the United States, Europe, Japan and South Korea over the past 30 years, but the opposite is true in fast-growing East Asian megacities, possibly due to lax antipollution rules or lack of enforcement.
The U.S. Clean Air Act began requiring regulatory controls for vehicle emissions in the 1970s, and 1990 amendments addressed issues including acid rain. Similar steps in the European Union, Japan and South Korea over the past three decades have reduced nitrate and sulfate in rain - components contributing to acid rain, said Suresh Rao, Lee A. Reith Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering and Agronomy at Purdue University.
The effects of acid rain can propagate through aquatic ecosystems such as lakes, rivers and wetlands and terrestrial ecosystems including forests and soils, negatively impacting ecological health.
Researchers have now used publicly accessible data, collected weekly or monthly at numerous monitoring sites during the period from 1980-2010, to track "wet deposition" of nitrate and sulfate near several U.S. and East Asian cities. The pollutants, products of fossil fuel combustion, are emitted by cars, trucks and buses. Pollutants rise up into the atmosphere and accumulate until being washed down as wet deposition by rain or snow or as "dry deposition" between rain events.
Fast-growing cities in East Asia that lack regulations or enforcement show a dramatic rise in acid rain, according to the new study completed by Purdue researchers.
"Our analysis of wet deposition (acid rain) data provides compelling evidence that clean-air policies and enforcement of environmental regulations are profoundly important," Rao said.
The findings of the study are detailed in a research paper published in the journal Atmospheric Environment. The article is accessible online and will appear in the May issue. It was co-authored by civil engineering postdoctoral researchers Jeryang Park and Heather Gall and by Rao and Dev Niyogi, Indiana state climatologist and an associate professor in the Purdue Department of Agronomy and the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences.
Severe problems with air pollution also are evident in particulate matter (PM) concentrations contributing to smog. In a recent study published in the Lancet journal, PM pollution was the fourth-leading risk factor for death in China and may be linked to 1.2 million premature deaths in 2010. Similar problems exist in cities in India, where air pollution is estimated to contribute to about 600,000 premature deaths, according to the Lancet study.
"We are in an urban era with more people staying in cities than ever before in the history of mankind," Niyogi said. "The impact cities can have on the environment we find is a function of growing population and affluence, and more importantly how regulations are shaped and implemented. As a result of regulations and enforcement, what goes up as emissions is now much smaller, and that means what comes down as acid rain also is much smaller. Every car now has a catalytic converter that reduces tailpipe emissions. So, adoption of highly efficient control technologies, as uniformly as we do across the United States, has resulted in lower emissions. In essence, we've solved the acid rain problem through good environmental regulations and wide adoption of mitigation technologies."
The Purdue study findings show that even though rainfall patterns vary widely from one city to another, the annual average rate of nitrate and sulfate found in wet deposition is essentially the same across the United States.
"That was a surprise," Rao said. "Because rainfall patterns vary so much from one location to another, you would think wet deposition also would vary. Yet, it's the same across the United States, and that's because we have regulations and enforcement and engineering solutions to control emissions."
However, the same homogeneity is not seen in several large fast-growing cities in East Asia, where high wet deposition rates match high, unregulated emissions.
"This is the same thing that transpired in the United States in the period leading up to the 1970s," Rao said. "We had rapid urban growth, rising emissions and rising wet deposition, which is analogous to what's happening now in places like Beijing and New Delhi."
For example, the concentration of nitrate and sulfate in rainwater in the Chinese city of Xi'an is 10 times greater than in New York City.
The reduction in wet deposition in U.S. cities is especially significant considering that the time period also was marked by dramatic growth in gross domestic product, urban population and the number of vehicles.
"This is encouraging," Gall said. "When mitigation strategies are widely adapted, it is possible for cost-effective engineering solutions to protect the environment while simultaneously allowing people to maintain the same quality of life."
The researchers have developed a model that can be used to simulate and predict how wet deposition rates vary across megacities located in diverse climatic regions, such as arid or humid.
"Given certain emissions and rainfall patterns, we can now project how wet deposition rates would increase initially and then decrease when and if regulations are in place," Rao said. "Additionally, the model can be used to examine wet deposition rates under climate-change scenarios."
The study findings also have implications for variations in wet deposition rates under shifting weather resulting from climate-change scenarios, as well as rapid urbanization in emerging economies.
Although annual wet deposition patterns are influenced by variability in rainfall amounts both within a year and from year to year, the effects are much greater when pollutant-emission regulation is weak. For example, even though Xi'an, China, is predicted to become drier in the future due to climate changes, the data and modeling analysis revealed that long-term climate oscillations like El Nino and La Nina cycles could induce dramatic increases in the concentration of pollutants in rainfall, ultimately leading to increased wet deposition of pollutants.
"This implies that when regulations are inadequately implemented, climate change could result in much larger impacts on the environment," said Park, the article's lead author.
Future work will shift focus to sub-Saharan Africa, where major growth is anticipated later in the century.
"The majority of the newest megacities will be in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, and that's where the biggest economic development will be," Park said.
###
Writer: Emil Venere, 765-494-4709, venere@purdue.edu
Sources: Suresh Rao, 765-496-6554, pscr@purdue.edu
Dev Niyogi, 765-494-6574, climate@purdue.edu
ABSTRACT
Temporal Trajectories of Wet Deposition Across Hydro-Climatic Regimes: Role of Urbanization and Regulations at U.S. and East Asia Sites
Jeryang Parka, Heather E. Galla, Dev Niyogib,c, P. Suresh C. Raoa,c,*
a School of Civil Engineering, Purdue University
b Department of Earth and Atmospheric Science
c Agronomy Department
Dominant global patterns of urbanization and industrialization contribute to large-scale modification of the drivers for hydrologic and biogeochemical processes, as evident in Asia, Africa and South America, which are experiencing rapid population and economic growth. One manifestation of urbanization and economic development is decreases in air quality, increases in dry/wet deposition fluxes, and growing adverse impacts on public health and ecosystem integrity. We examined available long-term (1980-2010) observational data, gathered at weekly intervals, for wet deposition at 19 urban sites in the U.S., and monitoring data (2000-2009) available for 17 urban sites at a monthly scale in East Asia. Our analyses are based on data for four constituents (SO4, NO3, Ca2+, and Mg2+); differences in atmospheric chemistry and terrestrial sources of these constituents enabled a robust comparative analysis. We examined intra-annual variability and the long-term temporal trajectories of wet deposition fluxes to discern the relative role of anthropogenic and stochastic hydro-climatic forcing. Here, we show that: (1) temporal variability in wet deposition fluxes follows an exponential probability density function at all sites, evidence that stochasticity of rainfall is the dominant control of wet deposition variability; (2) the mean wet deposition flux, ? (M/L2/T), has decreased in the U.S. over time since enactment of the Clean Air Act, with ? having become homogenized across varying hydro-climatic regimes; and (3) in contrast, ? values for East Asian cities are 3-10 times higher than U.S. cities, attributed to lax regulatory enforcement. Based on the observed patterns, we suggest a stochastic model that generates ellipses within which the ? temporal trajectories are inscribed. In the U.S., anthropogenic forcing (regulations) is dominant in the humid regions, while variability in hydro-climatic forcing explains inter-annual variability in arid regions. Our stochastic analysis facilitates projections of the temporal trajectory shifts in wet deposition fluxes as a result of urbanization and other land-use changes, climate change, and regulatory enforcement.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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Public release date: 3-Apr-2013
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