The Science of the total environment
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Sci. Total Environ. · Dec 2017
Role of climate anomalies on decadal variation in the occurrence of wintertime haze in the Yangtze River Delta, China.
The wintertime haze day (HD) in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region of China shows a significant upward trend during the past decades due to the rapid industrialization and urbanization. Besides the enhanced anthropogenic emission, climate change also plays the important role in the long term HD variations. In this study, the significant decadal variation of wintertime HD during the period 1960-2012 in YRD is examined by the empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis, featured as less HD occurrence before 1980 and more occurrence after 2000. ⋯ Through the composite analysis on the atmospheric dynamical and thermal conditions based on the reanalysis data, the faster warming in the lower and middle troposphere over the continent in the recent decade is suggested to be important for the out-of-phase decadal HD variation in YRD. The thermal anomaly not only reverses the zonal thermal difference of land-sea to stimulate the anomalous southerlies over YRD leading to reduced prevailing north wind in winter, but also develops the deep inversion below the mid-troposphere to enhance the atmospheric stability. As a result, more frequent and persistent air stagnations in recent decade are expected for the reduction of atmospheric horizontal dispersion and vertical diffusion capacity leading to more occurrence of wintertime HD in YRD.
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Sci. Total Environ. · Oct 2017
Types of household humidifier disinfectant and associated risk of lung injury (HDLI) in South Korea.
From 2002 through 2015, hundreds of people died of fatal lung injuries associated with the use of humidifier disinfectants (HDs) in Korea. Several chemical disinfectants used for household humidifiers were later clinically confirmed to cause HD-associated lung injury (HDLI). The aim of this study is to evaluate the registered lung disease cases and to compare the distribution of HDLI patients, including deaths, by HD use characteristics including types of HD and HD brands categorized by age group. ⋯ Other HDs did not appear to be linked to HDLI. The majority of the HDLI patients (n=85, 38.5%) was found to use only Oxy Saksak® products containing PHMG. The development of HDLI was clinically found to be associated with the use of several HD products containing PHMG and PGH, and to lesser extent, CMIT/MIT.
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Sci. Total Environ. · Feb 2017
Retraction Of PublicationWITHDRAWN: Cause and predictability for the severe haze pollutions in downtown Beijing during November-December 2015.
This article has been withdrawn at the request of the author(s) and/or editor. The Publisher apologizes for any inconvenience this may cause. The full Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal can be found at https://www.elsevier.com/about/our-business/policies/article-withdrawal.
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Sci. Total Environ. · Feb 2017
Engineering imaginaries: Anticipatory foresight for solar radiation management governance.
Since solar radiation management (SRM) technologies do not yet exist and capacities to model their impacts are limited, proposals for its governance are implicitly designed not around realities, but possibilities - baskets of risk and benefit that are often components of future imaginaries. This paper reports on the project Solar Radiation Management: Foresight for Governance (SRM4G), which aimed to encourage an anticipatory mode of thinking about the future of an engineered climate. ⋯ The scenarios then provided the context for the design of systems of governance with the capacity and legitimacy to respond to those challenges, and for the evaluation of the advantages and drawbacks of different options against a wide range of imaginary but plausible futures. SRM4G sought to initiate a conversation within the SRM research community on the capacity of foresight approaches to highlight the centrality of conceptions of the future to discussions of SRM's threats and opportunities, and in doing so, examined and challenged the assumptions embedded in conceptualizing SRM's aims, development and governance, and discussed the capacity of governance options to adapt to a wide range of possibilities.
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Sci. Total Environ. · Feb 2017
Evaluating the influence of geo-environmental factors on gully erosion in a semi-arid region of Iran: An integrated framework.
Despite the importance of soil erosion in sustainable development goals in arid and semi-arid areas, the study of the geo-environmental conditions and factors influencing gully erosion occurrence is rarely undertaken. As effort to this challenge, the main objective of this study is to apply an integrated approach of Geographic Object-Based Image Analysis (GEOBIA) together with high-spatial resolution imagery (SPOT-5) for detecting gully erosion features at the Kashkan-Poldokhtar watershed, Iran. We also aimed to apply a Conditional Probability (CP) model for establishing the spatial relationship between gullies and the Geo-Environmental Factors (GEFs). ⋯ The validation findings illustrated that overall accuracy for GEOBIA approach and the area under the ROC curve for the CP model were 92.4% and 89.9%, respectively. Also, based on sensitivity analysis, soil texture, drainage density, and lithology represent significantly effects on the gully erosion occurrence. This study has shown that the integrated framework can be successfully used for modeling gully erosion occurrence in a data-poor environment.