Widespread pesticide distribution in the European atmosphere questions their degradability in air

Risk assessment of pesticide impacts on remote ecosystems makes use of model-estimated degradation in air. Recent studies suggest these degradation rates to be overestimated, questioning current pesticide regulation. Here, we investigated the concentrations of 76 pesticides in Europe at 29 rural, coastal, mountain, and polar sites during the agricultural application season. Overall, 58 pesticides were observed in the European atmosphere. Low spatial variation of 7 pesticides suggests continental-scale atmospheric dispersal. Based on concentrations in free tropospheric air and at Arctic sites, 22 pesticides were identified to be prone to long-range atmospheric transport, which included 15 substances approved for agricultural use in Europe and 7 banned ones. Comparison between concentrations at remote sites and those found at pesticide source areas suggests long atmospheric lifetimes of atrazine, cyprodinil, spiroxamine, tebuconazole, terbuthylazine, and thiacloprid. In general, our findings suggest that atmospheric transport and persistence of pesticides have been underestimated and that their risk assessment needs to be improved

Widespread pesticide distribution in the European atmosphere questions their degradability in air

Risk assessment of pesticide impacts on remote ecosystems makes use of model-estimated degradation in air. Recent studies suggest these degradation rates to be overestimated, questioning current pesticide regulation. Here, we investigated the concentrations of 76 pesticides in Europe at 29 rural, coastal, mountain, and polar sites during the agricultural application season. Overall, 58 pesticides were observed in the European atmosphere. Low spatial variation of 7 pesticides suggests continental-scale atmospheric dispersal. Based on concentrations in free tropospheric air and at Arctic sites, 22 pesticides were identified to be prone to long-range atmospheric transport, which included 15 substances approved for agricultural use in Europe and 7 banned ones. Comparison between concentrations at remote sites and those found at pesticide source areas suggests long atmospheric lifetimes of atrazine, cyprodinil, spiroxamine, tebuconazole, terbuthylazine, and thiacloprid. In general, our findings suggest that atmospheric transport and persistence of pesticides have been underestimated and that their risk assessment needs to be improved

Zugspitze ozone 1978–2020: The role of stratosphere-troposphere transport

The pronounced increase of ozone observed at the Alpine station Zugspitze (2962 m a.s.l.) since the 1970s has been ascribed to an increase of stratospheric air descending to the Alps. In this paper, we present a re-analysis of the data from 1978 to 2011 for both ozone and carbon monoxide, extended until 2020 by the data from the Global Atmosphere Watch site Schneefernerhaus (UFS, 2671 m a.s.l.) just below the Zugspitze summit. The analysis is based on data filtering utilizing the isotope 7Be (measured between 1970 and 2006) and relative humidity (1970 to 2011, UFS: 2002 to 2020). We estimate both the influence of stratospheric intrusions directly descending to the northern rim of the Alps from the full data filtering and the aged (&ldquo;indirect&rdquo;) intrusions from partial filtering with the 7Be data. The evaluated total stratospheric contribution to the annual-average ozone rises roughly from 12 ppb in 1970 to 24 ppb in 2003. It turns out that the increase of stratospheric influence is particularly strong in winter. A lowering in positive trend is seen afterwards, almost parallel to the beginning decrease of solar irradiation. The air masses hitting the Zugspitze summit have become drier in the percentile range up to at least 25 % until 2003, and we see the growing stratospheric contribution as an important factor to this drying. Both an increase of lower-stratospheric ozone and a growing width of the intrusion layer departing downward from just above the tropopause must be taken into consideration. Carbon monoxide in intrusions did not change much during the full measurement period 1990 to 2020, with perhaps a slight increase until 2005 and an almost constant behaviour afterwards. This is remarkable since outside intrusions a decrease by approximately 44 % was found, indicating a substantial improvement of the tropospheric air quality.</p

Montrer le marché. Afficher, emballer, étiqueter

L’information économique, environnementale et sanitaire est à l’affiche. D’un côté, on assiste à l’affirmation d’un consommateur de plus en plus actif à la recherche d’appuis cognitifs susceptibles de soutenir son engagement dans l’action. De l’autre, les acteurs institutionnels publics ou privés tentent de porter leur voix sous forme d’affichage, d’emballage ou d’étiquettes. Paradoxalement, ces deux mouvements sont à la fois convergents et contradictoires : est-il possible de concilier des formes de communication descendante et unilatérale avec l’expression de publics en quête d’interactivité ? Telle est l’une des questions qu’aborde ce numéro sur les dispositifs sociotechniques d’affichage, d’emballage et d’étiquetage. Les supports informationnels à destination des publics forment des espaces ambigus, où se croisent et se combinent souvent les voix des régulateurs et des acteurs de l’offre, du droit et du marché. Pour aborder ces supports et en saisir les enjeux, il convient d’en éclairer l’histoire, d’en explorer les formes, de s’interroger sur l’agencement des différents niveaux d’inscription (de l’affichage à l’étiquette, en passant par l’emballage et la signalétique), de rendre compte du jeu des régulations publiques et des initiatives privées, de l’investissement de l’étiquetage par les consommateurs comme lieu d’information consumériste ou d’expression politique, voire d’examiner l’émergence de formats informationnels nouveaux, largement soutenus par les nouvelles technologies (smartphones, sites internet) qui semblent sortir l’affichage de plus d’un siècle de communication unilatérale et asymétrique pour l’ouvrir à des formes inédites d’interaction avec les usagers

Fingerprints of the COVID-19 economic downturn and recovery on ozone anomalies at high-elevation sites in North America and Western Europe

Abstract. With a few exceptions, most studies on tropospheric ozone (O3) variability during and following the COVID-19 economic downturn focused on high-emission regions or urban environments. In this work, we investigated the impact of the societal restriction measures during the COVID-19 pandemic on surface O3 at several high-elevation sites across North America and Western Europe. Monthly O3 anomalies were calculated for 2020 and 2021, with respect to the baseline period 2000–2019, to explore the impact of the economic downturn initiated in 2020 and its recovery in 2021. In total, 41 high-elevation sites were analyzed: 5 rural or mountaintop stations in Western Europe, 19 rural sites in the Western US, 4 sites in the Western US downwind of highly polluted source regions, 4 rural sites in the eastern US, plus 9 mountaintop or high-elevation sites outside Europe and the United States to provide a “global” reference. In 2020, the European high-elevation sites showed persistent negative surface O3 anomalies during spring (March–May, i.e., MAM) and summer (June–August, i.e., JJA), except for April. The pattern was similar in 2021, except for June. The rural sites in the Western US showed similar behavior, with negative anomalies in MAM and JJA 2020 (except for August), and MAM 2021. The JJA 2021 seasonal average was influenced by strong positive anomalies in July, due to large and widespread wildfires across the Western US. The polluted sites in the Western US showed negative O3 anomalies during MAM 2020, and a slight recovery in 2021, resulting in a positive average anomaly for MAM 2021 and a pronounced month-to-month variability in JJA 2021 anomalies. The Eastern US sites were also characterized by below average O3 for both MAM and JJA 2020, while in 2021 the negative values exhibited an opposite structure compared to the Western US sites, which were influenced by wildfires. Concerning the rest of the World, a global picture could not be drawn, as the sites, spanning a range of different environments, did not show consistent anomalies, with a few sites not experiencing any notable variation. Moreover, we also compared our surface anomalies to the variability of mid-tropospheric O3 detected by the IASI satellite instrument. Negative anomalies were observed by IASI, consistent with published satellite and modeling studies, suggesting that the anomalies can be largely attributed to the reduction of O3 precursor emissions in 2020