air ban presents research opportunities

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by sugarmatic, Sep 14, 2001.

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  1. sugarmatic Registered Member

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    The current cessation of air travel may present an unprecedented and unrepeatable opportunity in the study of the impacts of aviation on the environment. The tens of millions of gallons of fuels that are consumed in an average North American day by the avaiation industry may contribute as much as 15% to specific greenhouse pollutants and particulates globally. The current North American air travel ban may allow data to be gathered that could be used to develop a credible and definitive experimental control model for a wide variety of atmospheric research.
     
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  3. wet1 Wanderer Registered Senior Member

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    Welcome to Sciforums, sugarmatic.

    The only trouble that I spot with your statement is that the polutants will still be up there a week from now. So at best it will be a contaminated sample.
     
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  5. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    It no less is still a chance to sample and see what changes have occured, Much like when Britain had a fuel crisis. At least back then I was able to ride my bicycle without coughing up a lung from the amount of pollution being kicked out by cars.

    Of course I might have been the only person on the road, but it didn't matter.
     
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  7. sugarmatic Registered Member

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    The pollutant plumes will have dispersed from busy airport areas, and this effect alone could yield valuable concrete data. As it is, the air quality monitors near denver, colorado have indicated a measureable difference at the street level inconsistent with the weather recently. There are unique atmospheric conditions on the east side of the rockies that make this a predictable outcome, but still, the effects could be interesting aloft as well as near other busy aviation hubs. In addition, I would think an appropriate atmospheric model could be used with the data to generate useful information on the overall effect of aviation pollutants. BTW, if one calculates the "air change time" over the US, two and a half or three days is plenty of time to significantly clear the air. We get volcanic ash and gas plumes from Kamchatka only a few days after a significant burp over there. We have measureable pollution levels from Chinese coal fired power plants in the southern US.
     
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