Chemical Characterization of Natural Gas Leaking from Abandoned Oil and Gas Wells in Western Pennsylvania.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that there are over 3.

The Effects of Trash, Residential Biofuel, and Open Biomass Burning Emissions on Local and Transported PM and Its Attributed Mortality in Africa.

Long-term exposure to ambient fine particulate matter (PM) is the second leading risk factor of premature death in Sub-Saharan Africa. We use GEOS-Chem to quantify the effects of (a) trash burning, (b) residential solid-fuel burning, and (c) open biomass burning (BB) (i.e.

Vapors Are Lost to Walls, Not to Particles on the Wall: Artifact-Corrected Parameters from Chamber Experiments and Implications for Global Secondary Organic Aerosol.

Atmospheric models of secondary organic aerosol (OA) (SOA) typically rely on parameters derived from environmental chambers. Chambers are subject to experimental artifacts, including losses of (1) particles to the walls (PWL), (2) vapors to the particles on the wall (V2PWL), and (3) vapors to the wall directly (VWL). We present a method for deriving artifact-corrected SOA parameters and translating these to volatility basis set (VBS) parameters for use in chemical transport models (CTMs).

Composition, Emissions, and Air Quality Impacts of Hazardous Air Pollutants in Unburned Natural Gas from Residential Stoves in California.

The presence of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) entrained in end-use natural gas (NG) is an understudied source of human health risks. We performed trace gas analyses on 185 unburned NG samples collected from 159 unique residential NG stoves across seven geographic regions in California. Our analyses commonly detected 12 HAPs with significant variability across region and gas utility.

Estimated Mortality and Morbidity Attributable to Smoke Plumes in the United States: Not Just a Western US Problem.

As anthropogenic emissions continue to decline and emissions from landscape (wild, prescribed, and agricultural) fires increase across the coming century, the relative importance of landscape-fire smoke on air quality and health in the United States (US) will increase. Landscape fires are a large source of fine particulate matter (PM), which has known negative impacts on human health. The seasonal and spatial distribution, particle composition, and co-emitted species in landscape-fire emissions are different from anthropogenic sources of PM.

Revisiting particle dry deposition and its role in radiative effect estimates.

Wet and dry deposition remove aerosols from the atmosphere, and these processes control aerosol lifetime and thus impact climate and air quality. Dry deposition is a significant source of aerosol uncertainty in global chemical transport and climate models. Dry deposition parameterizations in most global models were developed when few particle deposition measurements were available.

Comparing regional stove-usage patterns and using those patterns to model indoor air quality impacts.

Monitoring improved cookstove adoption and usage in developing countries can help anticipate potential health and environmental benefits that may result from household energy interventions. This study explores stove-usage monitor (SUM)-derived usage data from field studies in China (52 stoves, 1422 monitoring days), Honduras (270 stoves, 630 monitoring days), India (19 stoves, 565 monitoring days), and Uganda (38 stoves, 1007 monitoring days). Traditional stove usage was found to be generally similar among four seemingly disparate countries in terms of cooking habits, with average usage of between 171 and 257 minutes per day for the most-used stoves.

Kitchen concentrations of fine particulate matter and particle number concentration in households using biomass cookstoves in rural Honduras.

Cooking and heating with solid fuels results in high levels of household air pollutants, including particulate matter (PM); however, limited data exist for size fractions smaller than PM (diameter less than 2.5 μm). We collected 24-h time-resolved measurements of PM (n = 27) and particle number concentrations (PNC, average diameter 10-700 nm) (n = 44; 24 with paired PM and PNC) in homes with wood-burning traditional and Justa (i.

A large source of cloud condensation nuclei from new particle formation in the tropics.

Cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) can affect cloud properties and therefore Earth's radiative balance. New particle formation (NPF) from condensable vapours in the free troposphere has been suggested to contribute to CCN, especially in remote, pristine atmospheric regions, but direct evidence is sparse, and the magnitude of this contribution is uncertain. Here we use in situ aircraft measurements of vertical profiles of aerosol size distributions to present a global-scale survey of NPF occurrence.

A Laboratory Assessment of 120 Air Pollutant Emissions from Biomass and Fossil Fuel Cookstoves.

Cookstoves emit many pollutants that are harmful to human health and the environment. However, most of the existing scientific literature focuses on fine particulate matter (PM) and carbon monoxide (CO). We present an extensive data set of speciated air pollution emissions from wood, charcoal, kerosene, and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cookstoves.

Effects of Fuel Moisture Content on Emissions from a Rocket-Elbow Cookstove.

Exposure to air pollution from solid-fuel cookstoves is a leading risk factor for premature death; however, the effect of fuel moisture content on air pollutant emissions from solid-fuel cookstoves remains poorly constrained. The objective of this work was to characterize emissions from a rocket-elbow cookstove burning wood at three different moisture levels (5%, 15%, and 25% on a dry mass basis). Emissions of carbon dioxide (CO), carbon monoxide (CO), methane, fine particulate matter (PM), PM elemental carbon (EC), PM organic carbon, formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes were measured.

Aerosol Optical Properties and Climate Implications of Emissions from Traditional and Improved Cookstoves.

Cookstove emissions are a major global source of black carbon but their impact on climate is uncertain because of limited understanding of their optical properties. We measured optical properties of fresh aerosol emissions from 32 different stove/fuel combinations, ranging from simple open fires to high-performing forced-draft stoves. Stoves were tested in the laboratory using the firepower sweep protocol, which measures emissions across the entire range of functional firepower.

The Firepower Sweep Test: A novel approach to cookstove laboratory testing.

Emissions from solid-fuel cookstoves have been linked to indoor and outdoor air pollution, climate forcing, and human disease. Although task-based laboratory protocols, such as the Water Boiling Test (WBT), overestimate the ability of improved stoves to lower emissions, WBT emissions data are commonly used to benchmark cookstove performance, estimate indoor and outdoor air pollution concentrations, estimate impacts of stove intervention projects, and select stoves for large-scale control trials. Multiple-firepower testing has been proposed as an alternative to the WBT and is the basis for a new standardized protocol (ISO 19867-1:2018); however, data are needed to assess the value of this approach.