Lecture 8: Introduction to temperature inversions and air pollution

UPDATE: I'm making materials available for all of my lectures on my website (melstrong.org) for either those bored folks stuck at home due to the virus or teachers looking for online content. For this lecture I have a set of activities related to soundings, atmospheric structure, and air pollution.
In this lecture we go over the weather conditions that lead to bad air quality, then talk about some of the air pollutants that are regulated by the Clean Air Act. With bonus ozone hole story!
This was originally part of the Blue Planet lecture series at the University of New Mexico. If you are interested in weather, this lecture is now part of my "weather short course" playlist, where there are another ~15 videos similar to this one.

[@tomphelan2182]

These lectures are really fantastic! With the pandemic (and being stuck at home), I have finally had the opportunity to learn more about meteorology. I have been watching dozens of programs and lectures on the subject, and I feel like I am beginning to get a grasp of some of the basics of a very complicated topic. But there is something unique about the way you go about presenting the information. In each of your lectures I find myself having at least one "Aha!" moment as a concept becomes more clear or a connection is made between what were formerly disparate pieces of information. From the time-lapse videos to the physical demonstrations of principles (e.g., air pressure) to the addition of a little bit of background on a subject, it all makes the subject easier to understand. Your mastery of the subject matter shows through in each lecture and you seem to enjoy what you do. And so I would like to say - thank you.

[@MelStrong]

Thank you for your comment! I'm glad someone is at home A-ha-ing over these! That's great!

[@jameshall9959]

Thank you for investing so much time in to these videos, Mel - thoroughly enjoying them. One minor detail to note is that most of the salmon that we eat in the world as I understand it is farmed and their feed has been reported in various cases to contain an alarming concoction of toxins. Own research encouraged as always!

[@MelStrong]

Well you are now in the world of water pollution, which is a much bigger topic than air pollution. For this class I pretty much stayed away from water pollution as it is much more complicated.

[@markdezuba]

This is well documented. Sad because I love eating salmon. I have had to change my eating habits.

[@J-xv2vc]

I'm currently studying for the private pilot theoretical test and these lectures are a real godsend. A billion times better than the documents mandated by the flightschool (which have a pretty hefty price tag attached to them).

[@paulfleisher765]

Thank you Mel. Your clarity to demonstrate and explain have given us a whole new bag of incite full tools.

[@MelStrong]

Glad it was helpful!

[@D3f3ndY0urFr3d0m]

Thank you for the lecture. This is very eye opening. FYI, you said this is recorded "early 2008" at minute 1:06:35 . I wish we were back in 2008...

[@MelStrong]

Good catch. Well I was only 10 years off...

[@adamsmalec]

Mel I love every one of your videos. I've been binging on your content for days now. I found one thing you said worth correcting: AQI in the red over central Europe is most likely not a temperature inversion, like you guessed. That pollution almost certainly has to do with the polish conservative pro-coal/theocratic government, who actively promotes the use of coal, and isn't interested in saving the environment. Nearly all Polish electrical grid runs on coal and there's no regulation against the use of coal to heat homes. There's an actual health crisis of respiratory sickness that all over Poland that is well known. All of that is just to taunt European Union, which Poland is a member of. AQI in the red over Central and Eastern Europe doesn't surprise me at all

[@gregory.chalenko]

That's a great explanation of air pollution hazards! I'm going to try and avoid exposure to dust and smoke as best as I can.

[@Bob-sk6xq]

With respect, are we able to measure the ozone before 1960? How do we know what it was 500 years ago? Absolutely love your teaching.

[@armagan2613]

All your lectures are excellent. Thanks a lot sir.

[@OrhanBaser1]

Excellent lecture, thank you very much!

[@hellkell8693]

You mentioned temperature inversions and pollution. I used to fly into Almaty KZ and was thinking how bad they are in the winter with everyone burning wood to heat their homes in the winter. Then you show a picture of Almaty (Grandfather of apples). It was very prominent from above.

[@MelStrong]

Grandfather of apples??

[@hellkell8693]

@@MelStrong supposedly that’s what Almaty means.

[@sarthak360]

imagine 10 circle shaped black plates (diameter of each plate: 350 feet). A material that can absorb and radiate sunlight's heat, inducing convection, could it potentially pierce the inversion layer? it could decrease the pollution by taking it above inversion and using the CCN from pollutants as a cloud seeding agent? all this dependent on if there is 70%+ relative humidity. The convection could make clouds, maybe even make rain, it's not that expensive of an idea as well. We all know water vapor in atmosphere is also heat trapping like Co2, contributing to global warming, couldn't this simple affordable idea use the waste RH in the atmosphere and accelerate weather patterns by converting RH into rain downwind? I would like to know what you think of this? I agree, very special conditions would be required to use this idea for rainmaking or cloud production.

[@MelStrong]

Inversions are of varying strengths and altitudes. A very weak inversion might be able to be punctured by a plume of warm air heated in the way you describe, but strong inversions probably can't. Nature has done a version of this experiment: in various locations around the world there are extensive fields of basalt (black volcanic rock) that are tens to hundreds of square kilometers in area. They definitely heat up in the sun, but they don't have much effect on the inversions above. Usually the sources of heat that do penetrate inversions are things like volcanic eruptions, nuclear bombs, and big forest fires.

[@markdezuba]

I love the way you think outside the box.

[@niedarle]

Thank you for these videos.

[@gollavillihari2516]

Please arrange these lectures ,it's diffucult to find all these lectures.very beautifully explained .

[@MelStrong]

Go to my channel and look for a playlist where they are all in order.

[@aylimo8691]

Very eye-opening lecture, great job! Would like to thank you in general for these lectures - I came with no knowledge whatsoever about weather, but just from these few lectures it feels like I've learned so much. You really have a special capacity for making difficult topics easy to understand. Been highly enjoying my time so far:) Also curious to know - did Trump really manage to get rid of all those regulations in the end? Hoping things will take a positive turn with the new administration!

[@MelStrong]

Some of the regulations were reduced, but not all. Some of that administration's work will probably be quickly reversed, depending on how it was done.

[@hellkell8693]

@@MelStrong something to consider is when we make it so expensive to do business in the US due to environmental regulations is that businesses will (and have) move to China and India. Thus grossly defeating many of our initiatives. The end result is worse. We need to consider end results but rarely do with anything our government does. Unfortunately it’s not just environmental anymore it’s our national security at risk. China makes SO much of everything we consume and they have decimated our manufacturing, they will literally destroy us in a future confrontation. I can almost guarantee there will be one soon. I am a former Navy pilot and now a cargo pilot. Unfortunately I fly about 280,000 lbs of Chinese crap every time I return from there. The world only cares about cheap products with no concern about the future consequences. That is a much bigger danger than relaxing some environmental laws. Great lectures by the way, I am learning much. Thank you.

[@manjuan9632]

I love your cats! 😺 Also i love how you always say "ooooh China"

[@pappont]

One of the main reasons air became cleaner in the US is that a lot of industry moved to China. Actually, the main world industry is now located in China. And in capitalism the goal of economic agent is maximum profit. One of the way to achieve it is reducing costs. That's why during capitalism there inevitably will be dirty industry, until it's profitable (I mean, in the world as a whole, some some countries may get rid of their industry and be clean, but they will consume goods that are manufactured somewhere by dirty industry, e.g. in China)

[@maverickngaihte5629]

Best of the best

[@homertalk]

How do I get the "Let the Balloon Go", Job?

[@MelStrong]

Sounds like fun until you realize that your time slot is 3AM and you live somewhere where its about -30 degrees out. Since most weather balloons are released at the same instant in time, that means that people in all time zones are releasing them simultaneously regardless of their local time...even if it is 3AM.

[@giuseppe9771]

What's the name of the software Mel uses in this class? It seems so useful

[@allaheadflank]

Great stuff - thanks!

[@TheHardUpscJourney]

amazing lecture..extremely useful.thank you sir

[@MelStrong]

Thank you I hope it helped!

[@MrManou1973]

Very interesting!

[@jonathanfanning9558]

That picture from khazakstan was nuts.

[@markdezuba]

You should make a test that we can access through a web site complete with answers.

[@EcoresolveInc]

Yes!!! That would be amazing!!!

[@spikarooni6391]

We love Mel Strong (っ´▽`)っ

[@MelStrong]

I'll take it

[@charlesmaeger6162]

Mel, I have a question regarding solar energy. The sun's energy is measured in jewels. My question involves the land of the United States and the seasons of the year. Is there any available scientific data about the average amount of jewels of energy (per acre of land) for each state of the U.S from winter to spring?

[@bwjbrown]

I'm wondering if one of the future lectures talks back to what happens to the pollution that is invariably pulled up by low pressure systems and carried far beyond its point of origination? One significant incident that comes to mind is Chernobyl, but even what's happening globally to all the pollution that China is producing daily.

[@MelStrong]

On the big scale of things, the particulates are removed by precipitation. Every pollutant has an average lifespan in the atmosphere, with particulates usually being fairly short-lived as they serve as condensation nucleii for precipitation. The lifespan of particulates in the atmosphere is usually months to years. Once you get into gasses though, it is more complicated. Some gasses have lifespans of only a few years, but some human-made gasses have lifespans of decades to hundreds or even thousands of years. The other thing to consider is whether the pollutant can get into the stratosphere or not. If so, there are no weather processes going on up there to removed them. This is why chlorofluorocarbons became famous in the 1970s-1980s: not only do they destroy ozone, but when they get up to the stratosphere they last from decades to thousands of years depending on the molecule. Ultimately, pollutants that get into the stratosphere will eventually breakdown due to interaction with very shortwave UV or cosmic rays.

[@janakiramnallamothu3020]

Ohhh!! China!!!..... LOL.. New Delhi too has the problem of Smog due to stubble burning in neighboring states in Winter season after Paddy harvest.

[@Kayspod]

Finally, a lecture on air pollution that was, for the most part not political. I'd never listen to air pollution lectures because all I got was doused with politics. So it was nice to finally have one that I actually learned what air pollution is.

[@IonNight]

Ive visited nullschool for years now and it looks like the PM1 and 2.5 is a lot lower now than when you made this video. It looks to me like India and China are trying to be better, but I dont know if thats actually the truth.

[@FedScare]

your cat kinda looks like Russell Crowe

[@markdezuba]

PM = Cat dander. Lol

[@georgen9755]

at this venue there is no seminar , no convention , no conference , no computers , no laptops , no faculty rooms, no faculty moving around , no kiosks , no facilities for refreshment stalls, no theaters , no auditoriums , no classrooms , only ..... public baths and . public .......toilets ........... no need to guess ........ what ......?? international institute of environmental studies .... no one pursues career ....... when .......... banks are enjoying ... all the research ... funds ... right ....okay ....

[@terryhogard1090]

Should have stayed non political.