Well, how! Everyone knows Smaug!
This cunning and graceful fire-breathing giant who burned down the neighborhood of Esgaroth and nearly killed poor Bilbo. His name arose from the synthesis of the English word smoke - "smoke" - and the Old Slavic smok - dragon.
Hm. Do you think that this is not about Smog at all, but about smog? But the truth is more modern problem.
What is smog
Smog - extremely strong air pollution from industrial waste(chemicals or tiny soot particles).
By definition, it is the result of human activity. If such contamination occurs as a result of natural disaster, it is called "haze". Yes, yes, the same one that thickened over Middle-earth.
The English love to play with words. They named the unpleasant phenomenon by combining the words smoke (we already know it) and fog - fog. In Russian it turns out "dyman" or "tudym".
For a long time during the industrial revolution coal was the culprit widely used as a fuel. Soot and sulfur dioxide rushed into the atmosphere, puffs of smoke forming over the city.
However, by the middle of the last century, progress led humanity to the creation of even more harmful substances, and scientists started talking about a new scourge.
Photochemical smog - the fog of the underworld
This phenomenon was first described in the 50s in California by the Dutch chemist Arie Haagen-Smith. He realized that substances in the air not only mix mechanically, but also enter into chemical reactions, forming new compounds.
The main components of this aerobroth are gases and aerosols:
- volatile compounds of organic nature (vapours of petroleum products (kerosene, gasoline), solvents, insecticides);
- nitrogen and sulfur compounds (oxides, peroxides);
- ozone.
home The problem is caused by solar radiation..
Stages processes are:
- Ultraviolet transforms the electrons of oxygen molecules (ozone and oxides) into an excited state.
- By this, it significantly accelerates the oxidation reactions of organic compounds sprayed in the air.
- As a result of oxidation, these substances become even more harmful to the environment.
Since ultraviolet radiation is the main trigger, Photochemical smog requires calm and clear weather. Large cities lying in hollows and surrounded by mountains are especially susceptible to it.
Countries with developed industry and transport suffer the most: all North American states, Japan,.
What is the harm
Smog causes irritation of mucous membranes mouth, nose, eyes, conjunctivitis, allergic reactions, exacerbation of chronic diseases(bronchial asthma, psoriasis, etc.), reduces immunity. May cause acute poisoning. Possibly causing cancer.
Similar diseases occur in animals and the smaller (in size and age) the creature, the higher the danger for it.
Plant life is disrupted, it is especially poorly tolerated by grapes, cereals, legumes, beets and houseplants.
Urban objects are damaged: faster metal rusts, rubber and paint crack. Synthetic fibers deteriorate (and hence clothes, special suits).
And this is Peter. No smog! Fairy preface
Everyone knows one of the favorite children's books - The Wizard of the Emerald City, written by Alexander Volkov based on the fairy tale by Frank Baum in 1939 and revised in 1959. Further books followed, no longer based directly on the tales of the American writer about Oz. The fifth in this cycle was the book "Yellow Mist". 
First published in 1968, it tells about the poisonous Yellow Mist, which was sent to the recalcitrant inhabitants of the Magic Land by the sorceress Arachne. At first, the fog was not very thick, and through it you could see the sun, which you could even look at without fear of going blind. However, visibility was soon reduced unusually, and beyond fifty paces it was difficult to distinguish anything in the murky darkness. This acted depressingly, since the world of each person became negligible and distinguishable only by the sounds distorted in the fog. The worst thing was that the eyes became inflamed from the poisonous fog, they watered, by the morning the inhabitants could hardly open their eyelids, and they had to be washed with water. In addition, breathing the Yellow Mist turned out to be fatally harmful. The smallest particles of fog, penetrating into the lungs, irritated them. The inhabitants, and then all the animals, began to cough, and then simply choke from coughing fits. However, the Yellow Mist carried more than just poison. Due to the fog covering the sun, cold and unusual winter set in in the country ...
To understand how dangerous such limited visibility is for health, let's look at the definitions. mist It is customary to call an atmospheric phenomenon in which, due to the accumulation of the smallest particles of water vapor, water droplets or ice crystals hanging above the earth's surface, visibility is less than 1000 meters. When visibility is less than 500 meters, they speak of heavy fog. Weak fog with visibility of 1 kilometer or more is indicated in weather reports as haze. She is often confused with haze, the so-called dry fog, when there is a significant deterioration in visibility due to the smoke of forest and peat fires, wind-blown dust, pollen and sand particles, and industrial emissions. There is also a transitional stage between wet and dry fogs, consisting of water particles mixed with dust, smoke and soot - the so-called dirty, urban fogs. One of them, called the killer fog, covered London for five days in December 1952, and its victims were, according to various estimates, from 4,000 Londoners who died immediately after the smog to 12 thousand people, whose premature death followed the Great Smog. Under this name, he went down in history. Unlike haze (turbidity of the air caused by the presence of natural particles of dust, pollen, snow or smoke from natural fires), smog is excessive air pollution harmful substances allocated by industrial enterprises and transport. Smog is a derivative of the English words smoke and fog, that is, smoke-fog. Thus, smog is considered a purely urban phenomenon, not found in rural areas.
What has changed, 65 years after the Great Smog?
Paris and London are on a par with Shanghai and Beijing
On March 14, 2014, the American website The Verge writes that the smog in Paris is so bad that the city provides free public transport:
Unusual weather patterns are to blame for some of the worst air pollution in recent years, authorities say: Dangerous weather has been seen in Paris and much of northern France this week. high levels pollution, which forced the authorities to provide Parisians with free public transport over the next few days. On Thursday, the French capital and several other regions were on high alert for the third day in a row as unseasonably warm and windless weather kept small hazardous particles suspended in the yellowed Parisian air.
Smog levels have similarly increased in London, where air quality index scores were higher than in the smog-stricken Chinese cities of Shanghai and Beijing, according to London-based non-profit group Clean Air. On Friday, Paris' air quality index (AQI) hovered around 185, putting it on par with Beijing, one of the most polluted cities in the world. The UK Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has forecast high levels of pollution in the south of England today, although it still has to issue an air pollution warning. Neighboring countries such as Belgium have also seen pollution spikes this week."
What kind of smog enveloped Moscow?
On November 21, 2014, according to the Russian weekly The Moscow Times, emergency services warned Muscovites for the third time in two weeks to stay indoors, as Moscow was enveloped in smog of unknown origin.
The Interfax news agency reported that the areas most affected by the smog are located in the southeast of the capital, although smoke-fog was also observed in the northeastern Savelovsky district, from the office of The Moscow Times. The tweet also included evidence of smog that enveloped the Moscow City business center in the downtown area.
The Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Monitoring, Roshydromet, blamed the burning of logging waste in the southern part of the city. However, according to Alexei Yaroshenko, Greenpeace's expert on Russian forests, this is an unsatisfactory explanation, given that the wind is blowing from a different direction. According to him, car gases and industrial emissions, hanging in unusually still air, are to blame for the fog.
November is usually a wet and windy month in Moscow, but in 2014 the weather was unusually cold, and the daily temperature for the week averaged minus 2 degrees Celsius, it was sunny and windless. The lack of wind exacerbated poor environmental conditions, which left the smog hovering over the city for a couple of weeks, according to the National Weather Service.
Authorities have neither confirmed nor denied media claims that industrial facilities in the city's southeast are responsible for air pollution. At the same time, residents of Moscow complained about the strong smell of hydrogen sulfide that enveloped the city. Toxic chemicals were in excess of legal limits. While the Ministry of Emergency Situations initially blamed the spread of hydrogen sulfide on an accident at a Gazprom refinery in southern Moscow, the company itself later denied any incident occurred.
Officials were unable to pinpoint the source of air pollution in Moscow in November 2014 and take appropriate action.
"Smoke-fog" in Indonesia and acute respiratory tract infections
On October 28, 2015, the Ukrainian website Telegraf reports that 19 people have died in Indonesia due to worsening respiratory problems caused by heavy fog and smog. About half a million cases of acute respiratory tract infections have already been reported, according to Indonesia's national health services, with more than 43 million people in the contaminated area.
It is noted that the cause of the smog was strong forest fires, the smoke from which reached other Asian countries, in particular Thailand. Fires in this region occur annually due to slash-and-burn felling of trees, which is common on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo.
National Agency for emergencies Indonesia called the smog that enveloped the region a crime against humanity.
Smog-mimicking chemtrails in Los Angeles
“They learned how to fake chemtrails for smog. Tonight I observed the thinnest layer of particles in which I noticed characteristic stripes and ripples, like from NEXRAD radars. The air looked smoky, but from the fact that it stretched west over the ocean, it was pretty clear that the smoke was from chemtrails or chembombs. In addition, the chemtrail was observed at sunset, probably sprayed west of Los Angeles along the ocean coast.
Many of us who grew up in Los Angeles remember how badly the air was polluted in the 80s and 90s. It looked like a brown blanket was hanging over the city. Throughout the 2000s, there has been a dramatic improvement in air pollution associated with car smog, but the chemtrail problem has now replaced the smog problem. Sometimes I have to hear people talking about smoke, and it's hard to explain that now it comes from airplanes. People have been conditioned to believe that their cars are one of the main contributors to global warming, when compared to geoengineering, it is a minor contribution.
Air quality has been poor all day today, with man-made smog replacing the man-made clouds by the end of the day. It was a strange weather day - hot and humid, with clouds (mostly artificial), not at all typical of the summer weather in Los Angeles. It's easy to fool people, especially when they don't notice the chemtrail sprays. Chemical bombardment in uninhabited areas such as the ocean is becoming a widely used method for dispersing heavy metal aerosols in the atmosphere."
Moscow was shrouded in "yellow fog"
On July 3, 2012, the Looking Beyond website reports that another natural phenomenon in Moscow has become a topic of active blog discussion:
“Some kind of eerie black-gray-yellow sky today on Pokrovsky Boulevard (if you look towards the Yauza)”; “The sky above the capital of such a beautiful natural yellow color!"; “Again, some pollen?”- described, ironically and asked users of Twitter microblogging.
“Muscovites observed the yellow-gray sky in different parts of the capital. In the morning it was really cloudy in the city, in some places it was intermittent rain. The Hydrometeorological Bureau of Moscow and the Moscow Region explained: low clouds were “tinted” by the sun.
A yellow haze hung in the sky over Moscow, bloggers from different parts of the capital report. Forecasters explain that this is not fog, but a cloud of African dust. The leading specialist of Gismeteo Leonid Starkov spoke about the natural phenomenon of Business FM radio station.
The expert believes that the unusual phenomenon that can be observed over Moscow is most likely due to air currents from North Africa. Starkov suggests that there, at some point, dust rose into the air, which air currents moved to Europe, and then it spread over central Russia. In his opinion, the phenomenon is explained by a combination of two factors: high humidity and air currents that came from the southwest and North Africa.
“Not a single station observed fog during the daytime. We just observed cloudiness, its combination with a certain height of the sun tinted in certain tones. I didn't see any other options. No emissions were noted anywhere, ”Tatiana Pozdnyakova, chief specialist of the Hydrometeorological Bureau, told the Russian News Service.
Residents of Khimki near Moscow and the northern districts of the capital, in turn, observed haze both on Tuesday morning and the night before. Some bloggers have reported that it smells like plastic. However, the press service of the regional Main Directorate of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of RIA Novosti assured that there were no active centers of forest and peat fires in the Moscow region. And the metropolitan department of the Ministry of Emergency Situations reported that calls for fires in the territory of the Northern administrative district did not have.
In April, greenish clouds were observed over the capital. Contrary to fears of an accident at some chemical plant or other production, environmentalists explained a natural phenomenon high concentration of pollen in the air due to flowering trees.
Afterword
Air pollution is increasing everywhere, and we are forced to state that there are no longer clean and harmless fogs, without a chemical or bacteriological suspension, no matter how they are called. The danger comes not only from smog or haze, but also from ordinary fog or haze. So, isn't it possible to unite all these unsafe cloudings of the atmosphere with one term - chemo?
Sources - in the course of the article (translated from English by L. Simdyanova)
Probably, in general terms, every modern student can answer what he could. And if we ask him a similar question, then, most likely, we will hear something like this: "Smog is a haze over a city that occurs as a result of excessive exhaust gases."
Is it really? Let's try to find out the nature and causes of this scientific point vision.
What is smog? What is the nature of its occurrence?
The name of this phenomenon, which first appeared in London several decades ago, has purely English roots. It happened when adding two nouns "smoke", which translated into Russian means "smoke" and "fog" - "fog".
This type of precipitation is typical for regions with very polluted air. A feature is the presence in the atmosphere of a large percentage of foreign particles on which steam condenses. It is believed that the main culprits in the occurrence of smog are the abundance of vehicles on the roads and certain weather conditions.
What is smog? Why is he dangerous?
Probably, it is unlikely that anyone will argue with the fact that living in cities for which smog has become an almost everyday phenomenon is risky and quite dangerous for human life. By the way, it is the bad ecology that doctors consider guilty of the pallor of the skin of local residents. It's not all about the lack of vitamins, as many believe. In megacities, getting a tan is simply unrealistic, because. smog, mixing with smoke and dust, does its best to prevent the energy of the sun's rays from reaching the earth.
But that's not all. Probably, residents of megacities have noticed that recently our cities in winter are increasingly threatened by heavy snowfalls, and showers have become almost a common occurrence. And this is no coincidence. Due to the fact that the air contains a huge amount of various kinds of small solid particles, it forms many times more droplets or snowflakes than, say, in rural areas, which means more clouds and precipitation as a result.
Of course, it is hardly possible to protect yourself from all the costs of urbanization. Remember the recent smog in Moscow? It was during that period in the capital's hospitals that the number of patients complaining of profuse lacrimation, annoying and frequent, increased. But that's not all. If harmful particles still enter our body, then their neutralization occurs in the liver, which means that the body is poisoned deep from the inside.
What is smog? His examples in the world
Unfortunately, in modern world When in many parts of the world the current situation leaves much to be desired, smog is not such a rare occurrence.
For example, wet precipitation of this type was characteristic of the capital of Great Britain and some other parts of this country about 100 years ago. And at that time, cars were not responsible for his education, as you understand. Around the 12th-13th century, in this state, residents heated their homes exclusively with coal, polluting more and more environment. As you know, fogs for this area are not at all uncommon. Particles of combustible fuel mixed with heavy rainfall, forming a haze that was impenetrable and detrimental to the health of residents - London smog. This kind of heating was eventually banned by King Edward on pain of death.
First seen in Los Angeles. He, according to the point of view of modern scientists, is formed in the upper only in the summer and under the influence of ultraviolet radiation. Industrial emissions, falling under the influence of sunlight, form more and more new, and often more toxic products.
SMOG- an aerosol consisting of smoke, fog and dust. English word"smog" is a derivative of "smoke" - smoke and "fog" - fog. It is the inhabitants English capital first faced with the problems associated with urban air pollution.
Coal has been burned in London since the 13th century. The townspeople were worried because of the perceptible smell - they believed that it could cause various diseases.
With the complete combustion of fossil fuels (coal or hydrocarbons), rather harmless products are formed - carbon dioxide and water, however, in conditions of lack of oxygen, toxic carbon monoxide is formed. If there is even less oxygen, carbon appears among the combustion products (in the form of soot). At low temperatures and a small amount of oxygen, the destruction of hydrocarbons can be accompanied by their isomerization and polycondensation, leading to the formation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, including benzopyrene, which has carcinogenic properties.
Air pollution can also be caused by impurities in the fuel, primarily sulfur compounds. Its content in some coals can reach 6%. When such fuels are burned, sulfur dioxide is produced. Dissolving in water droplets that condense around smoke particles, sulfur dioxide significantly reduces its pH. "Acid fog" is dangerous to health; it has a harmful effect on plants and animals, causes the destruction of metals and building materials.
Soot and sulfur dioxide, formed directly from fuel combustion, are primary air pollutants. In the conditions of dampness and fog, characteristic of winter London, they became the causes of prolonged smog, leading to an increase in lung diseases. Over time, smog became commonplace in other major cities and industrial centers.
The distribution of pollutants in the air to a large extent depends on weather and climatic phenomena. Winds increase the rate of dispersion and mixing, and air currents directed from the ground carry pollution into the upper atmosphere. However, conditions can arise in which the atmospheric layers become very stable. Then pollution, instead of moving to the upper layers of the atmosphere, remains near the surface of the earth. An unusual state of the atmosphere in which the air temperature in the troposphere does not decrease with height is called an inversion. This leads to the fact that colder air is located below warmer air, and cannot rise up and dissipate in the atmosphere. Under the "roof" warm air contaminants accumulate in such large quantities that they become hazardous to health.
The very first of the officially registered cases of atmospheric pollution, which had serious consequences, was smog in the city of Donora (USA) in 1948. Within 36 hours, two dozen deaths were recorded, hundreds of residents felt very bad. Four years later, in December 1952, an even more tragic incident occurred in London. More than 4,000 people died in five days due to the pollution accumulated in the air. Although in subsequent years severe smog in London and other cities was observed repeatedly, such catastrophic consequences, fortunately, did not happen again.
The transition from coal to hydrocarbon fuels has reduced the danger of air pollution from soot particles. However, new types of pollution have emerged, both primary and secondary, resulting from the reactions of primary pollutants with unburned fuel and atmospheric oxygen. chemical reactions, leading to the formation of secondary pollutants, occur most effectively in sunlight, so the resulting air pollution is called photochemical smog. It was first noted in Los Angeles (USA) during the Second World War. The appearance of photochemical smog is associated with the rapid development of road transport.
Under conditions of high temperature, at which fuel is burned in a car engine, the interaction between oxygen and nitrogen, which are part of atmospheric air. Atomic oxygen formed during the dissociation of oxygen molecules is able to split a molecule of relatively inert nitrogen, initiating a chain reaction:
O + N 2 = NO + N
N + O 2 = NO + O
As a result, nitrogen monoxide appears in the exhaust gases, which, once released into the atmosphere, is oxidized by atmospheric oxygen, turning into nitrogen dioxide. Brown nitrogen dioxide is photochemically active. When it absorbs light, it dissociates:
Thus, a reactive oxygen atom appears in the air, which can react with the formation of ozone:
The presence of ozone is the most feature photochemical smog. It is not formed during the combustion of fuel, but is a secondary pollutant. Possessing the strongest oxidizing properties, ozone has a harmful effect on human health and destroys many materials, primarily rubber.
In addition, reactions between nitrogen oxides and unburned organic compounds take place in photochemical smog. Among the products of such reactions are many carcinogens.
The differences between "wet smog" caused by burning coal in London and "dry smog" caused by car exhaust in Los Angeles are summarized in the table.
|
COMPARISON OF LOS ANGELES AND LONDON SMOG |
||
| Characteristic | Los Angeles | London |
| Air temperature | From 24 to 32°C | From -1 to 4°C |
| Relative Humidity | <70% | 85% (+ fog) |
| Temperature inversion | At an altitude of 1000 m | At a height of several hundred meters |
| Wind speed | < 3м/с | Windless |
| Visibility | <0,8–1,6 км | <30 м |
| Most frequent months | Aug. Sept | December - January |
| Main fuels | Petrol | Coal (and gasoline) |
| Main components | O 3 , NO, NO 2 , CO, organic matter | Fine particles, CO, sulfur compounds |
| Type of chemical reactions | Oxidation | Recovery |
| Maximum thickening time | Noon | Early morning |
| Main health impact | Eye irritation, respiratory disturbance | Respiratory tract irritation |
| Most damaged materials | Rubber | iron, concrete |
In the big cities of our country, three decades ago, cars were not the main source of air pollution. Now the environmental problems of motor transport in large Russian cities have become a serious problem. Thus, automobile exhausts in Moscow and St. Petersburg amount to hundreds of thousands of tons per year. Motor transport confidently came out on top among all other sources of air pollution. Therefore, in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other large cities, smog becomes a frequent visitor, especially in calm weather.
To prevent smog, it is necessary to improve car engines and effectively clean exhaust gases. The amount of carbon monoxide produced in car engines can be reduced by burning it to less dangerous carbon dioxide. An increase in the proportion of air in the combustible mixture helps to reduce the emission of not only CO, but also unburned hydrocarbons. The most effective were catalytic converters, in which carbon monoxide and unburned hydrocarbons are oxidized to carbon dioxide and water, and nitrogen oxides are reduced to molecular nitrogen. Unfortunately, catalytic converters cannot be used when the vehicle is refueled with leaded gasoline. Such gasoline contains lead compounds that irreversibly poison the catalyst. Alas, leaded gasoline is still widely used in our country.
To reduce sulfur dioxide emissions, sulfur compounds are preliminarily removed from the oil, and the flue gases are further purified. The ingress of sulfur compounds into the atmosphere can also be reduced by burning solid fuels in a fluidized bed. Particulate emissions from thermal power plants are reduced by using electrostatic precipitators or vacuum air filters.
In some cities, including Moscow, an important role in preventing smog is the fight against forest and peat fires in the surrounding forests, which also provoke the emergence of sustainable urban air pollution.
Unfortunately, progress in the fight against certain types of air pollution has not yet led to the disappearance of smog. Thus, the decrease in harmful emissions in the exhaust gases of cars per unit of mileage is compensated by the rapid growth in the number of vehicles, so the overall level of pollution does not decrease. Apparently, smog will remain a serious problem for residents of many large cities for a long time to come.
Elena Savinkina
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