Air pollution at human scales in an urban environment: Impact of local environment and vehicles on particle number concentrations.

Air pollution is a global challenge causing millions of premature deaths annually. This is limited not only to developing, but also developed nations, with cities in particular struggling to meet air quality limit values to adequately protect human health. Total exposure to air pollution is often disproportionately affected by the relatively short amount of time spent commuting or in the proximity of traffic.

The search for signs of recovery of the ozone layer.

Evidence of mid-latitude ozone depletion and proof that the Antarctic ozone hole was caused by humans spurred policy makers from the late 1980s onwards to ratify the Montreal Protocol and subsequent treaties, legislating for reduced production of ozone-depleting substances. The case of anthropogenic ozone loss has often been cited since as a success story of international agreements in the regulation of environmental pollution. Although recent data suggest that total column ozone abundances have at least not decreased over the past eight years for most of the world, it is still uncertain whether this improvement is actually attributable to the observed decline in the amount of ozone-depleting substances in the Earth's atmosphere.