7 days to die acid rain12/9/2023 ![]() In 1954, the network was expanded forming the European Air Chemistry Network (EACN) through initiatives by Egnér, Carl Gustav Rossby, and Erik Eriksson (Egnér and Eriksson 1955 see also Engardt et al. ![]() In 1947, the Swedish scientist Hans Egnér set up a Swedish network to investigate the importance of atmospheric deposition for the fertilisation of crops. Odén’s discoveries were to a large extent based on the regional precipitation networks that were running in Sweden and Europe. From now on, OECD and the western world realised that air pollution might be a problem of international political dimensions. The opinion then changed and the meeting agreed that acid rain might be an issue to look into. It was not until Persson felt he was going to “loose the case” he “played his last card” and pointed to the observations of intercontinental transport of radioactivity from the Chinese nuclear bomb experiments. Also, here the message was met by scepticism and the common opinion among the members in the committee was that sulphur dioxide was a local problem, which easily could be solved by tall stacks. The issue was also brought up in OECD’s Air Pollution Management Committee by the Swedish delegate Göran Persson. The discovery received immediate attention by the Swedish government and, a few weeks after Odén’s article, the minister of industry presented the issue at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), but it did not receive any political attention at that time. Emissions of all key air pollutants have been reduced significantly and for the most important acidifying compound, sulphur dioxide, emissions in Europe have decreased by 80% or more since the peaks around 1980–1990 (Fig. Eight protocols have been signed under the Air Convention committing parties to take far-reaching actions, not only with respect to acid rain but also with respect to several other air pollution problems (Table 1). Even in North America acid rain received large public and policy attention.ĭuring the cold war, with almost no contacts between East and West, acid rain broke the ice and formed an opening for scientific and political collaboration, resulting in a treaty under the United Nations’ Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (often mentioned as CLRTAP but in this paper we call it the Air Convention) signed in 1979. ![]() Observations of fish extinction in Scandinavian surface waters and forest dieback on the European Continent were top stories in the news media. For some time, particularly during the 1980s, acid rain was by many considered to be one of the largest environmental threats of the time. ![]() It became a game changer both scientifically and policy-wise. We also highlight the need to maintain and develop supporting scientific infrastructures.Īcid rain was one of the most important environmental issues during the last decades of the twentieth century. Finally, acid rain and air pollution are set in the context of future societal developments and needs, e.g. We also discuss important characteristics of the science–policy interactions, such as the critical loads concept and the large-scale ecosystem field studies. In this paper, which is based on an international symposium organised to commemorate 50 years of successful integration of air pollution research and policy, we briefly describe the scientific findings that provided the foundation for the policy development. Widespread scientific research, long-term monitoring, and integrated assessment modelling formed the basis for the policy agreements. Through these actions, in particular those under the UNECE Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution, air emissions were substantially reduced, and ecosystem impacts decreased. Because of its serious large-scale effects on ecosystems and its transboundary nature, acid rain received for a few decades at the end of the last century wide scientific and public interest, leading to coordinated policy actions in Europe and North America.
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