Air Quality and Its Improvement

Air Quality

• Pertains to the degree of air cleanliness, clarity, and freedom from pollutants like smoke, dust, and smog.
• Factors affecting air quality: particulate matter, critical air contaminants, smog, persistent organic pollutants, and ozone.

Improving Air Quality

• Individual actions: carpooling, wise consumer purchases.
• Community actions: "green" projects, bike paths.
• Provincial actions: closing down incinerators.
• National/International actions: Kyoto accord.

Methods to Improve Air Quality

• Cleaner burning fuels.
• End of pipe technology.
• Catalytic converters.

Health Issues with Poor Air Quality

• Dust mites.
• Pet dander.
• Mold in older or poorly ventilated buildings.
• Pollens.
• Respiratory health: asthma.

The Grasshopper Effect

• The process of transporting certain chemicals (like POPs) from warmer to colder regions, especially the poles and mountain tops.

Bioaccumulation and Biomagnification

• Bioaccumulation: build-up of substances within an organism.
• Biomagnification: build-up of substances through the trophic levels of a food chain.
• Fat-soluble substances dissolve in fat.
• Water-soluble substances dissolve in water.

Greenhouse Effect

• The problem caused by increased quantities of gases like carbon dioxide in the air, trapping heat and causing a gradual rise in Earth's atmospheric temperature.
• Greenhouse gases of concern: carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxides.

Acid Precipitation

• Any form of precipitation high in acid pollutants, especially sulfuric and nitric acid.
• pH scale measures acidity.
• Causes: sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides emissions, transported by wind and air currents.

The Atmosphere

• A layer of gases and moisture surrounding Earth.
• Composition: 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and other gases.
• Major functions: protecting from harmful solar radiation, trapping heat, providing energy circulation systems, and maintaining necessary gases for life.

Anthropogenic Interactions

• Combustion: releasing carbon dioxide and other gases, contributing to the Greenhouse Effect.
• Industrial: burning fuels and releasing gases, affecting the atmosphere.
• Domestic: using aerosols, which scatter and absorb sunlight, reducing visibility and affecting the atmosphere.

Ozone Depletion

• Chemical thinning of the ozone layer in the stratosphere or upper atmosphere, particularly by chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).
• Impacts: environmental (inhibiting growth, cancer, and loss of biodiversity), human health (sunburn, skin cancer, premature aging, and immune system depletion), and building structures (durability and performance of materials affected).

Climate Change

• Long-term changes in average weather patterns in a region.
• Effects: changes in weather patterns, rainfall patterns, sea levels, potential droughts, habitat loss, and heat stress.

Impacts of Climate Change

• Forestry: changes in vegetation types, biodiversity, and species adaptation.
• Agriculture: changes in growing season, extreme weather events, types of crops, and precipitation variability.
• Fishery: changes in water temperature, species distribution, and growth rates.
• Coastal Zones: coastal erosion, flooding, and changes in ocean water due to melting ice.