Buy

Books
Click images for more details

Twitter
Support

 

Recent posts
Recent comments
Currently discussing
Links

A few sites I've stumbled across recently....

Powered by Squarespace

Discussion > Are area NO2 emission measurements correct?

As it looks like the diesel scrappage scheme is approaching I thought I would have a look at some government data.

Searching for adjacent areas of high and low NO2 emission.

http://naei.defra.gov.uk/data/gis-mapping

Shows NO2 emissions (and others) across the UK in a nice map based presentation.

On the Isle of Wight, at Chale Green (upper boundary) Newman Lane, Gotten Lane (Southern boundary) we have a 1km square showing an emission level within the second from the top in concentration ( 1..010519t ).


Google maps: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.6141271,-1.3148501,1437m/data=!3m1!1e3!5m1!1e1

Shows the area, one road, the B3399 a hundred houses, a few small businesses and lots of farm fields.


Not much present in terms of roads full of diesel powered vehicles on their morning and afternoon commute.
I wonder how much reduction they/we could expect from the eradication of diesel powered cars (not vans, lorries or tractors)?

An even better example:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.6565404,-1.2314591,1124m/data=!3m1!1e3!5m1!1e1

Shows an area, all farms, mineral extraction, glass houses and one road the A3056.

This area shows up 'in the red zone' at 37 t per km, a third of London peaks of 100t/km +.

Maybe farming is a large generator of NO2, I do not know.

May 5, 2017 at 9:39 AM | Unregistered CommenterSteve Richards
May 5, 2017 at 1:25 PM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic man

Diesel scrappage scheme? I listened to Wheeliebin on Radio 4 6pm news earlier while driving (a diesel) - they are still claiming 40,000 deaths per year in the UK - as in 10x the numbers killed on the roads. Does Diane Abbott moonlight as a "public health" statistician?

This lurch in emphasis and determined turning up the volume of alarmist squawkings is straightforward manipulation.

A cynic might say that since CO2 observations (via OCO-2) are proving quite problematic it's been decided to change the colour of the eco-loon kitten chaser laser.... I wonder if tey had a syposium of the great and good and vested interests before launching the latest campaign? Of course - if they did - one can be certain that they won't want the deliberations of the policy change to seep out into the real world like they did before - eh?

May 5, 2017 at 8:52 PM | Registered Commentertomo

Premature deaths. But by how much: minute, hour, day, week, month....?

May 5, 2017 at 9:08 PM | Unregistered Commenterssat

ssat

given the mendacious methodology - that'd be whatever number they want to pluck out of a hat (that they'd carefully loaded)

Given Harrabin's slime on the radio earlier - it's a given and the usual sneering and name calling will follow anybody challenging it.

May 5, 2017 at 9:15 PM | Registered Commentertomo

Let's nail the 40K stat
It's NOT 40K PHYSICAL deaths
It's 40K alleged EQUIVALENT deaths.
Calculated by saying all 350K people/year who die from ALL causes would have been affected by air pollution and would have lived X days more without it. And then adding all those lost days up and saying that's like 40K people not dying that year. The error bars are massive.

Start here : video Sunday Politics Dec18th called out pollution hyperbola
Features Frew and Spiegelhalter

May 6, 2017 at 11:45 AM | Registered Commenterstewgreen

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is a duck.

If it looks like agenda driven, Green Blob Climate Science, it is a dead duck. Trying to make dead ducks fly, has cost progressive politicians in the USA, UK and EU a lot of support over the last 12 months or so.

May 6, 2017 at 2:58 PM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

Does anyone know where the data can from for the court case?

It would be interested follow the trail of 'data'.

May 6, 2017 at 6:48 PM | Unregistered CommenterSteve Richards

If you mean the govs latest plan
Searching site:.gov.uk "air pollution"
got me to uk-air.defra.gov.uk/news
"05/05/2017 Improving air quality: consultation on a revised national plan for tackling nitrogen dioxide in our towns and cities"

and : 27/04/2017 Air Quality Statistics in the UK, 1987 to 2016
... A quick glance shows no cause for panic
: general background fall some blips and seasonal variability
PDF has more detail

May 6, 2017 at 10:26 PM | Registered Commenterstewgreen

Guardian gets me to
the latest NOx plan

It's quite a long detailed plan

May 6, 2017 at 10:51 PM | Registered Commenterstewgreen

Call me stupid, if you will…

Okay, you can stop now.

I have long been under the impression that nitrogen is essential to plants; however, simple N2, which is in abundance, is no good – it has to be in the form of oxides. This is why legume crops should be included in crop rotation, as there are nodules in the roots containing bacteria that fix N2 with O2 and make the soluble oxides, which are then released into the soil, for uptake by other plants. Also, lightning is a creator of nitrogen oxides; as there are some 2,000 lightning storms extant around the globe at any one time, there must be an awful lot of NOx being produced from that source, alone. Now, given that the DEFRA .pdf paper that stewgreen has linked to, in its contents pages, refers to nitrogen dioxide as air pollution (“3. Sources of nitrogen dioxide air pollution…”), how should we tackle what nature is providing in greater abundance than we possibly can?

Oh… and it turns out that ozone is harmful, too. Get those CFCs out, and spray away!

May 7, 2017 at 10:25 AM | Registered CommenterRadical Rodent

Radical rodent

"All things are poison, and nothing is without poison, the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison."

—Paracelsus[

May 7, 2017 at 1:52 PM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic man

RR. Plants like the nitrate anion (NO3), not NOx (NO and NO2). We appreciate stratospheric ozone, but suffer from that at ground level. If you wish to experience NOx and ground level ozone, take a trip on an LA freeway during the afternoon rush hour.

May 7, 2017 at 2:00 PM | Unregistered CommenterSupertroll

Radical Rodent, nitrates are what plants like. With bacterial assistance, nitrites in urine become nitrates.

Alchemists had lots of secret potions that involved boiling urine etc as a source of ammonia/nitrites for chemistry, gunpowder, tanning leather etc, not just plant fertiliser. Some hauliers, whether with horse and cart or boat, were assigned to "taking the piss", not their favourite task.

Nitrate fertiliser is very cheap to produce, and readily available. Terrorists know that you can still make explosives with it.

May 7, 2017 at 6:25 PM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

Thanks EM for one of my favorite phrases from the master, Paracelsus. He speaks truth, but there are also so many ways to be poisonous and so many strengths, too. My understanding is that the root, pharmokos, means poison. Most medicines, besides the bacterial antibiotics, poison in some fashion some normal metabolic pathway.

Another good one, that medicines(poisons) are herbis, verbis, et lapidibus.
==============

May 8, 2017 at 4:17 AM | Unregistered Commenterkim

Turgenov attributes that one to Paracelsus in 'Father's and Son's', but Jonathan Glauber supposedly originated it, appending 'magna vis est' to the first four words, though he, doubtless, was speaking of chemicals more generally than just pharmaceuticals. Funny, that 'Glauber's Salt' was such a hit, or should I say blast.
==================

May 8, 2017 at 4:27 AM | Unregistered Commenterkim