4 ms·
Air moves. Pollution from one country /half way around the world/ can float to where you live. Most ships are closer than /halfway around the world/ to pieces
by illumen 17y ago
Air moves. Pollution from one country /half way around the world/ can float to where you live. Most ships are closer than /halfway around the world/ to pieces of land as they travel from one side of the world to the other.
Where do you think all of the sulphur and CO2(also mentioned in the article) goes? It doesn't float off into space.
In London, I'd be way more worried about the air in the subway system. The London subway has some of the most filthiest air you will ever experience. It has that tar sulphur smell to it.
- cperciva 17y agoAir moves Yes, but it moves slowly. Where do you think all of the sulphur and CO2 goes? The lifetime of SO2 in the atmosphere is no more than a few days; before it can reach land, most of it is converted to (SO4)^{2-}. I agree with you where CO2 is concerned, because CO2 is not rapidly eliminated from the atmosphere -- but the article isn't talking about CO2.
- lutorm 17y agoRight. The SO2 goes into the ocean and makes them more acidic. The trouble is that CO2 is already doing the same thing, and we don't need oceans with lower pH.
- cperciva 17y agoThe SO2 goes into the ocean and makes them more acidic. Yep. But worldwide SO2 emissions are approximately 2.2 * 10^12 mol/year, which -- given the oceans' volume of approximately 1.3 billion cubic kilometers -- would translate to an annual increase in ocean (SO4)^{2-} concentration of 0.0000000017 mol/L, even if every molecule of SO2 released into the atmosphere ended up in the oceans in the form of (SO4)^{2-}. Given that seawater already contains approximately 0.028 mol/L of (SO4)^{2-}, I don't think this is a rate of increase which we particularly need to worry about.