William Atkins
Saturday, 11 October 2008 20:07
Science -
Climate
Page 1 of 3
A team of British researchers has measured what they call a “chemical equator” that separates the relatively clean atmosphere of the southern hemisphere from the very dirty skies of the northern hemisphere. They found much more pollution in the hemisphere where most of the people live.
Atmospheric chemist
Jacqueline Hamilton, from the University of York in the United Kingdom, and atmospheric chemist and physicist
Geraint Vaughan, from the University of Manchester in the U.K., led the research team on an aerial survey above Darwin, which is located along the northern coast of Australia.
Their research airplane was equipped with instruments able to measure chemicals in the atmosphere—specifically human-made chemicals that cause pollution on a global scale.
The Northern Hemisphere is known by scientists to be more polluted than the Southern Hemisphere because it has more landmass and, thus, more industrialized cities and more human population, where much more human-made pollution is present.
Polluted air masses in the Northern Hemisphere remain in the northern part of Earth, while relatively unpolluted air masses in the Southern Hemisphere stay in the south. Thus, a chemical boundary forms between them.
They studied this “chemical equator,” or a 30-mile (50-kilometer) wide atmospheric belt that sits north of Earth’s real equator, which runs approximately north of Australia and through the Western Pacific Ocean in the Eastern Hemisphere.
It also divides the polluted Southeast Asia from the unpolluted Southern Ocean, which surrounds Antarctica.
What were the findings of this British study? Please read on.
