Atmosphere
What layer of the atmosphere do humans live in?
What layer of the atmosphere do humans live in?
What is the colorless gas that is produced by fossil fuels that is the leading factor to human made climate change
Carbon Dioxide
Natural air pollution indicator that grows in trees.
Lychens
What are the sources of water that are considered wastewater?
House, industrial, commercial and storm water
A water pollutant that is used for plant growth, it was banned in the 60s because of Rachel Carson.
DDT
Which atmospheric layer contains the ozone layer, and why is this layer critical for life on Earth?
The stratosphere contains the ozone layer. It is critical for life because it absorbs the majority of the sun's harmful UV radiation.
What secondary pollutant is formed when NOx and VOCs react with solar radiation?
Tropospheric Ozone
How many pollutants are under the New WHO Global Air Quality Guidelines?
6
Name two parts of the water treatment cycle and what they do.
Filtration, Coagulation and Flocculation, Sedimentation, Disinfection.
Name of the professor that teaches the environmental Laboratory
Monica Hoover
What is one piece of evidence that proves that the earth is moving faster at the equator than it is at the poles?
The presence of prevailing winds, the presence of jet streams, and the Coriolis effect (Any of the 3).
This pollutant is produced by burning coal and causes acid rain when reacted with Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) + water vapor in the atmosphere
Sulphur Dioxide (SO2)
How many times has the Clean Air Act been revised, and what were the general ideas behind these revisions?
3 times; version 1: funding for research, version 2: creation of EPA, version 3: expansion of EPA authority
What is the treatment stage called when bacteria is used to break down organic matter, after large solids have been removed?
Secondary treatment/Anaerobic treatment
This animal has a success story of recovery when DDT was banned and nesting sites were build.
American Bald Eagle
This term describes the unnatural increase in greenhouse gases caused by human activities, leading to global warming
What is the difference between the composition of the Great London Smog and the smog of Los Angeles?
London smog comes strictly from emissions from coal; LA smog is photochemical
Technology that removes particles and gases using a narrow throat and liquid droplets.
Venturi Scrubbers
If I filtrate a wastewater sample, all the solids that are in the water are...
Dissolved solids
What 5 pillars does the book say are needed to control pollution?
Technology, wealth, politics and governance, laws and regulations and ethics.
Explain how the interaction between the Hadley, Ferrell, and Polar cells influences global wind patterns, and analyze why deserts are commonly found around 30 degrees latitude.
The Hadley, Ferrell, and Polar cells transport heat from the equator to the poles. At around 30 degrees latitude, air from the Hadley cells sinks, creating high-pressure zones with dry air. This suppresses cloud formation and precipitation, leading to the formation of many of the world's major deserts.
Explain what is the phenomenon that caused in LA that PAN levels increase even when the NOx emissions do not.
Temperature inversions trap pollutants near the surface, allowing VOCs and NOₓ to accumulate. With strong sunlight, photochemical reactions intensify, producing more PAN and ozone.
Describe the different approaches to mitigating air pollution in a crowded city compared to mitigating air pollution from within a power plant.
Mitigating air pollution in a busy city involves less mechanic approaches such as, planting more trees, implementing urban green spaces or natural screens, creating low emission zones, and having more pedestrianized town centers that involve more walking than driving. In contrast, approaches to mitigate air pollution from within power plants are much more mechanistic/ involve more machinery. For example, cyclones, baghouse filters, electrostatic precipitators, and scrubbers are used to decrease emissions from power plants and industrial sites.
Explain BOD5
It is a measure of the amount of dissolved oxygen needed by microorganisms to decompose organic material in a water sample over a period of five days
Explain what is the difference between risk and hazard.
Hazard is the ability of something to cause harm, while risk is the likelihood of that harm occurring.