Updated correlation between aircraft smoke number and black carbon concentration

Aircraft emissions of black carbon (BC) contribute to anthropogenic climate forcing and degrade air quality. The smoke number (SN) is the current regulatory measure of aircraft particulate matter emissions and quantifies exhaust plume visibility. Several correlations between SN and the exhaust mass concentration of BC (CBC) have been developed, based on measurements relevant to older aircraft engines. These form the basis of the current standard method used to estimate aircraft BC emissions (First Order Approximation version 3 [FOA3]) for the purposes of environmental impact analyses. In this study, BC with a geometric mean diameter (GMD) of 20, 30, and 60 nm and filter diameters of 19 and 35 mm are used to investigate the effect of particle size and sampling variability on SN measurements. For BC with 20 and 30 nm GMD, corresponding to BC emitted by modern aircraft engines, a smaller SN results from a given CBC than is the case for BC with 60 nm GMD, which is more typical of older engines. An updated correlation between CBC and SNthat accounts for typical size of BC emitted by modern aircraft is proposed. An uncertainty of ±25% accounts for variation in GMD in the range 20-30 nm and for the range of filter diameters. The SN-CBC correlation currently used in FOA3 underestimates by a factor of 2.5-3 for SN <15, implying that current estimates of aircraft BC emissions derived from SN are underestimated by the same factor. Copyright © American Association for Aerosol Research.

Land-cover changes in an urban lake watershed in a mega-city, Central China

Urbanization can exert a profound influence on land covers and landscape characteristics. In this study, we characterize the impact of urbanization on land cover and lacustrine landscape and their consequences in a large urban lake watershed, Donghu Lake watershed (the largest urban lake in China), Central China, by using Landsat TM satellite images of three periods of 1987, 1993 and 1999 and ground-based information. We grouped the land covers into six categories: water body, vegetable land, forested land, shrub-grass land, open area and urban land, and calculated patch-related landscape indices to analyze the effects of urbanization on landscape features. We overlaid the land cover maps of the three periods to track the land cover change processes. The results indicated that urban land continuously expanded from 9.1% of the total watershed area in 1987, to 19.4% in 1993, and to 29.6% in 1999. The vegetable land increased from 7.0% in 1987, 11.9% in 1993, to 13.9% in 1999 to sustain the demands of vegetable for increased urban population. Concurrently, continuous reduction of other land cover types occurred between 1987 and 1999: water body decreased from 30.4% to 23.8%, and forested land from 33.6% to 24.3%. We found that the expansion of urban land has at least in part caused a decrease in relatively wild habitats, such as urban forest and lake water area. These alterations had resulted in significant negative environmental consequences, including decline of lakes, deterioration of water and air quality, and loss of biodiversity.

沈阳市苔藓植物及其对大气质量的指示作用

沈阳是东北地区重要的老工业基地，也是该地区的交通枢纽。本文在对沈阳市进行广泛调查并采集苔藓植物标本的基础上，系统地研究了沈阳市苔藓植物的种类构成、区系、分布格局及其与环境因子的关系，同时利用苔藓植物对沈阳市的大气质量进行了指示。得出的主要结论有： （1）对882份苔藓植物标本进行鉴定，共记录苔藓植物30科67属143种及变种，其中包括苔类（含角苔）9科11属14种，藓类21科56属128种1变种。在记录中发现辽宁省新记录属1个，新纪录种36种，东北新纪录种18种，主要以丛藓科（Pottiaceae）和真藓科（Bryaceae）等地面生藓类为主。 （2）将研究区苔藓植物划分为10个区系成分，其中以北温带分布占据绝对优势，其次为东亚分布和中国特有分布，具强烈的温带性质。通过相似性系数的计算，表明沈阳市苔藓植物区系与鞍山市和抚顺市的亲缘性较大；与上海市和杭州市亲缘性较远。 （3）应用TWINSPAN和DCA，以样点为对象，苔藓植物的重要值为指标，对研究区苔藓植物分布格局进行了分析。结果将样点划分为三个组，从组一到组三，物种丰富度和苔藓盖度逐渐增加。分类与排序的结果与样点的实际物种分布特点基本一致。 （4）采用CCA对沈阳市35种主要地面苔藓植物与环境因子间的关系进行了分析。根据环境因子的影响，将沈阳市主要地面苔藓植物分为两类。同时发现土壤含水量、乔木层郁闭度和人为干扰是影响沈阳市苔藓植物分布的主要因素。 （5）采用大气净度指数法（IAP）和重金属元素（Mn, Fe, Cu, Cr和Pb）化学分析法对沈阳市的大气质量进行了监测。结果表明市区污染远重于郊区，市区西部污染重于东部，南部重于北部；各区以Pb污染最为严重，值得重视。同空气污染指数（API）进行比较，发现IAP与Cu、Pb和API之间具显著负相关性，说明随着重金属含量和API值的升高，IAP值降低，即苔藓植物的种类和盖度下降。以IAP值为自变量，API值为因变量，建立了回归方程y=-0.914x+101.849，进一步说明了IAP值与API值之间的关系。

植物对环境污染的磁学响应机理研究

With development of industry and acceleration of urbanization, problems of air quality as well as their influences on human health have recently been regarded highly by current international communities and governments. Generally, industrializations can result in exhausting of a lot of industry gases and dusts, while urbanization can cause increasing of modern vehicles. Comparing with traditional chemical methods, magnetic method is simple, rapid, exact, low-cost and non-destructive for monitoring air pollution and has been widely applied in domestic and international studies. In this thesis, with an aim of better monitoring air pollution, we selected plants (highroad-side perennial pine trees (Pinus pumila Regel) along a highroad linking Beijing City and the Capital International Airport, and tree bark and tree ring core samples (willow, Salix matsudana) nearby a smelting industry in northeast Beijing) for magnetic studies. With systemic magnetic measurements on these samples, magnetic response mechanism of contamination（e.g. tree leaves, tree ring）to both short- and long-term environmental pollution has been constructed, and accordingly the pollution range, degree and process of different time-scale human activities could be assessed. A series of rock magnetic experiments of tree leaves show that the primary magnetic mineral of leaf samples was identified to be magnetite, in pseudo-single domain (PSD) grain size range of 0.2-5.0 μm. Magnetite concentration and grain size in leaves are ascertained to decrease with increasing of sampling distance to highroad asphalt surface, suggesting that high magnetic response to traffic pollution is localized within a distance of about 2 m away from highroad asphalt surface. On the other hand, highroad-side trees and rainwater can effectively reduce the concentration of traffic pollution-induced particulate matters (PMs) in the atmosphere. This study is the first time to investigate the relationship of smelting factory activities and vicissitudes of environment with tree rings by magnetic methods. Results indicate that magnetic particles are omnipresent in tree bark and trunk wood. Magnetic techniques including low-temperature experiment, successive acquisition of IRM, hysteresis loops and SIRM measurements suggest that magnetic particles are predominated by magnetite in pseudo-single domain state. Comparison of magnetic properties of tree trunk and branch cores collected from different directions and heights implies that collection of magnetic particles depends on both sampling direction and height. Pollution source-facing tree trunk wood contains significantly more magnetic particles than other sides. These indicate that magnetic particles are most likely intercepted and collected by tree bark first, then enter into tree xylem tissues by translocation during growing season, and are finally enclosed in a tree ring by lignifying. Correlation between magnetic properties such as time-dependent SIRM values of tree ring cores and the annual steel yields of the smelting factory is significant. Considering the dependence of magnetic properties in sampling directions, heights, and ring cores, we proposed that magnetic particles in the xylem cannot move between tree rings. Accordingly, the SIRM and some other magnetic parameters of tree ring cores from the source-facing side could be contributed to historical study of atmospheric pollution produced by heavy metal smelting activities, isoline diagrams of SIRM values of all the tree rings indicate that air pollution is increasing worse. We believed that a synthetic rock magnetic study is an effective method for determining concentration and grain size of ferromagnets in the atmospheric PMs, and then it should be a rapid and feasible technique for monitoring atmospheric pollution.