Acidity contamination in the atmosphere recovered to levels before the Industrial Revolution

ByBilly Wilson

The atmospheric acidity varies depending on the volcanic eruption and the exhaust gas emitted from the machine, but the survey by the University of Copenhagen revealed that modern atmospheric acidity has returned to levels before the Industrial Revolution.

Acidity in atmosphere minimized to preindustrial levels - University of Copenhagen
http://news.ku.dk/all_news/2016/09/acidity-in-atmosphere-minimised-to-preindustrial-levels/


The University of Copenhagen has unveiled a unique research to investigate the climate and atmospheric composition so far from the ice sheet of Greenland. The ice sheet is constituted by snow cover, and it has the property of being compressed without melting. Originally, a method of analyzing climate change, concentration of greenhouse gases, degree of air pollution, etc. from the annual layer every year by drilling a hole of 1 km in diameter on the ice sheet is known, If we use equipment that can measure the conductivity of the core we can analyze the climate state retroactively until the last glacial period of the past 125,000 years.


Meanwhile, in this measurement method, since the ice is not compressed up to 60 meters from the top of the ice sheet, it seems that it was difficult to examine the acidity in the past 100 years. However, since it has been during the past 100 years that humans exerted a major influence on air pollution, the University of Copenhagen published a research result using a new method of directly measuring the acidity of ice using a spectrometer .

By melting slowly the ice sticks cut along the length of the core of ice, you can obtain snow melting ice water useful for chemical measurements. By measuring the snow melting ice water with the new method of Copenhagen University which measures the pH value, it seems that we succeeded in finding the atmospheric acidity in the relatively near age of the past 100 years. Also, with this new measurement method, it is possible to filter to what changes are caused by volcano, forest fire and exhaust.


"The acidity contamination of the atmosphere due to the development of the industry began around 1930 and peaked in the 1960s and 1970s, but the research team found out that acidity has dramatically decreased by recent years It is explained. This was adopted by Europe and America in the 1970'sAtmospheric purification methodResults of. "The acidity in the atmosphere has returned to levels before the 1930s," researcher Helle Astrid Kjar says.