Intestinal parasites from public and private latrines and the harbour canal in Roman Period Ephesus, Turkey (1st c. BCE to 6th c. CE)

To improve our knowledge of the parasite species affecting the inhabitants of Roman period Asia Minor, we analysed faecal material from Ephesus, Turkey. Mineralised material from the drain from a private house latrine (3rd c. CE), sediment samples from the sewer drain of a public communal latrine (6th c. CE), and sediment from the harbour canal (ca. 1st c. BCE to ca. 6th c. CE) were studied for the presence of intestinal parasites. Samples were viewed by light microscopy for helminth eggs, and commercial enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kits were used to test for protozoal parasites that cause dysentery. Eggs of roundworm were found in the public latrine, whipworm in the house latrine, and both whipworm and roundworm in the harbour canal. Sequential sampling of the harbour core suggests that whipworm was by far the most common parasite throughout the Roman period, and there was no clear evidence for change in parasite species over the centuries. Whipworm and roundworm are both spread by the contamination of food and drink by human faeces. Despite the large number of travellers to Ephesus, as the capital of its province and a major port city in the Roman Empire, there was a surprising lack of diversity in parasite species found. This is especially apparent when we consider that ten species of intestinal parasite have been found across the Roman Empire. This is the first Roman site to be directly assessed for differences between infection in individuals using private latrines, public latrines, and mixed town effluent (in the harbour) at the same site.This research was supported by a doctoral award from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [752-2016-2085] and a Tidmarsh Cambridge Scholarship from the Cambridge Commonwealth, European and International Trust and Trinity Hall Colleg

Tropospheric column amount of ozone retrieved from SCIAMACHY limb–nadir-matching observations

Tropospheric ozone (O₃), has two main sources: transport from the stratosphere and photochemical production in the troposphere. It plays important roles in atmospheric chemistry and climate change. Its amount and destruction are being modified by anthropogenic activity. Global measurements are needed to test our understanding of its sources and sinks. In this paper, we describe the retrieval of tropospheric O₃ columns (TOCs) from the combined limb and nadir observations (hereinafter referred to as limb–nadir-matching (LNM)) of the SCanning Imaging Absorption spectroMeter for Atmospheric CHartographY (SCIAMACHY) instrument, which flew as part of the payload onboard the European Space Agency (ESA) satellite Envisat (2002–2012). The LNM technique used in this study is a residual approach that subtracts stratospheric O₃ columns (SOCs), retrieved from the limb observations, from the total O₃ columns (TOZs), derived from the nadir observations. The technique requires accurate knowledge of the SOCs, TOZs, tropopause height, and their associated errors. The SOCs were determined from the stratospheric O₃ profiles retrieved in the Hartley and Chappuis bands from SCIAMACHY limb scattering measurements. The TOZs were also derived from SCIAMACHY measurements, but in this case from the nadir viewing mode using the Weighting Function Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (WFDOAS) technique in the Huggins band. Comparisons of the TOCs from SCIAMACHY and collocated measurements from ozonesondes in both hemispheres between January 2003 and December 2011 show agreement to within 2–5 DU (1 DU = 2.69 × 10¹⁶ molecules cm⁻²). TOC values from SCIAMACHY have also been compared to the results from the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) and from the LNM technique exploiting Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) and Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) data (hereinafter referred to as OMI/MLS). All compared data sets agree within the given data product error range and exhibit similar seasonal variations, which, however, differ in amplitude. The spatial distributions of tropospheric O₃ in the SCIAMACHY LNM TOC product show characteristic variations related to stratosphere–troposphere exchange (STE) processes, anthropogenic activities and biospheric emissions

Intercomparison of oxygenated volatile organic compound measurements at the SAPHIR atmosphere simulation chamber

This paper presents results from the first large-scale in situ intercomparison of oxygenated volatile organic compound (OVOC) measurements. The intercomparison was conducted blind at the large (270 m(3)) simulation chamber, Simulation of Atmospheric Photochemistry in a Large Reaction Chamber (SAPHIR), in Julich, Germany. Fifteen analytical instruments, representing a wide range of techniques, were challenged with measuring atmospherically relevant OVOC species and toluene (14 species, C-1 to C-7) in the approximate range of 0.5-10 ppbv under three different conditions: (1) OVOCs with no humidity or ozone, (2) OVOCs with humidity added (r.h. approximate to 50%), and (3) OVOCs with ozone (approximate to 60 ppbv) and humidity (r.h. approximate to 50%). The SAPHIR chamber proved to be an excellent facility for conducting this experiment. Measurements from individual instruments were compared to mixing ratios calculated from the chamber volume and the known amount of OVOC injected into the chamber. Benzaldehyde and 1-butanol, compounds with the lowest vapor pressure of those studied, presented the most overall difficulty because of a less than quantitative transfer through some of the participants' analytical systems. The performance of each individual instrument is evaluated with respect to reference values in terms of time series and correlation plots for each compound under the three measurement conditions. A few of the instruments performed very well, closely matching the reference values, and all techniques demonstrated the potential for quantitative OVOC measurements. However, this study showed that nonzero offsets are present for specific compounds in a number of instruments and overall improvements are necessary for the majority of the techniques evaluated here