Simulated Soil Vapor Intrusion Attenuation Factors Including Biodegradation for Petroleum Hydrocarbons

Aerobic biodegradation can contribute significantly to the attenuation of petroleum hydrocarbons vapors in the unsaturated zone; however, most regulatory guidance for assessing potential human health risks via vapor intrusion to indoor air either neglect biodegradation in developing generic screening levels or allow for only one order of magnitude additional attenuation for aerobically degradable compounds, which may be overly conservative in some cases. This paper describes results from three-dimensional numerical model simulations of vapor intrusion for petroleum hydrocarbons to assess the influence of aerobic biodegradation on the attenuation factor for a variety of source concentrations and depths for residential buildings with basements and slab-on-grade construction. The simulations conducted in this study provide a framework for understanding the degree to which bioattenuation will occur under a variety of scenarios and provide insight into site conditions that will result in significant biodegradation. This improved understanding may be used to improve the conceptual model of contaminant transport, guide field data collection and interpretation, and estimate semi-site-specific attenuation factors for combinations of source concentrations, source depth, oxygen distribution, and building characteristics where site conditions reasonably match the scenarios simulated herein.     

Terrain-influenced local wind forecasting for the Sasebo typhoon haven: Improved empirical techniques

Although the Sasebo, Japan harbor is usually a “typhoon haven” from tropical cyclone (TC) winds due to terrain-blocking effects, in rare cases damaging winds occur that may be attributed to terrain channeling. An empirical parametric model technique is developed and tested that includes consideration of the TC wind structure, land frictional effects, and terrain influences affecting the maximum wind speeds in the harbor when TCs pass within 200 nautical miles of Sasebo. The terrain influence is represented by two sets of wind direction-dependent acceleration factors. The first set, which is directly from the ratio of the local wind to the adjusted parametric wind for TCs passages during 2003–2010, provides mean values that represent the terrain blocking and channeling effects, but the variability with wind direction may be suspect. The second set derived from a large sample of reanalysis winds not limited to TCs has better variability properties, but is not easily related to just the TC passages. A new nomogram modified to include TC wind structure has higher estimates of Sasebo sustained winds for some TC tracks that may be related to terrain influences, but is limited due to the number of TC structure estimates in the developmental sample. These empirical models have the advantage of ease and low cost for future use in also estimating the combined uncertainty in the local winds in Sasebo harbor due to TCs.     

Streambed restoration to remove fine sediment alters reach‐scale transient storage in a low‐gradient fifth‐order river,Indiana, USA

Hyporheic restoration is of increasing interest given the role of hyporheic zones in supporting ecosystem services and functions. Given the prevalence of sediment pollution to waterways, an emerging restoration technique involves the removal of sediment from the interstices of gravel‐bed streams. Here, we document streambed sediment removal following a large, accidental release of fine sediment into a gravel‐bed river. We use this as a natural experiment to assess the impact of fine sediment removal on reach‐scale measures of transient storage and to document the responses of reaches with contrasting morphology (restored vs. unrestored) to changing discharge one‐field season. We conducted a series of conservative solute tracer experiments in each reach, interpreting both summary statistics for the recovered in‐stream solute tracer time series. Additionally, we applied the transient storage model to interpret the results via model parameters, including a Monte Carlo analysis to measure parameter identifiability and sensitivity in each experiment. Despite the restoration effort resulting in an open matrix gravel bed in the restored reach, we did not find the significant differences in most time series metrics describing reach‐scale transport and transient storage. We hypothesize that this is due to enhanced vertical exchange with the gravel bed in the restored reach replacing lateral exchange with macrophyte beds in the unrestored reach, developing a conceptual model to explain our findings. Consequently, we found that the impact of reach‐scale removal of fine sediment is not measureable using reach‐scale solute tracer studies. We offer recommendations for future studies seeking to measure the impacts of stream restoration at the reach scale.     

Political orientation and climate concern shape visual attention to climate change

Despite the scientific consensus, there is widespread public controversy about climate change. Previous explanations focused on interpretations hampered by political bias or insufficient knowledge of climate facts. We propose that public views of climate change may also be related to an attentional bias at a more basic level of cognitive processing. We hypothesized that selective visual attention towards or away from climate-related information would be associated with climate concern. To test prioritization of climate-related stimuli under conditions of limited attention, we asked participants to identify climate-related and neutral words within a rapid stream of stimuli. Undergraduate students attended to climate-related words more readily than neutral words. This attentional prioritization correlated with self-rated climate concern. We then examined this relationship in a more diverse community sample. Principal component analysis of survey data in the community sample revealed a component indexing a relationship between climate concern and political orientation. That component was correlated with the degree of selective inattention to climate-related words. Our findings suggest that climate-related communications may be most effective if tailored in a manner accounting for how attentional priorities differ between audiences—particularly those with different political orientations.     

Potential impacts of climate change on storage conditions for commercial agriculture: an example for potato production in Michigan

Climate change is anticipated to influence all parts of agricultural production systems. However, the potential impacts on crop storage have rarely been assessed, even though storage is an important component of a grower’s marketing strategy and is essential for the continuous supply of a commodity for processors, exporters, and consumers. The Michigan chip-processing potato industry provides an example of the importance of crop storage. Michigan is the largest producer of chip-processing potatoes in the USA, and potatoes are stored on farms from September to June. We use an ensemble of climate projections developed for three future time slices (early, mid, and late century) from 16 climate models forced by three greenhouse gas concentration pathways to assess future changes in potato storage conditions. Our findings indicate an increased future demand for ventilation and/or refrigeration immediately after harvest and again in spring and early summer, even for the early-century time slice. Furthermore, the period of reliably cold storage temperatures during winter is anticipated, when averaged across all models, to shorten by 11–17 days in Michigan’s primary production area and 14–20 days in the more southern secondary area by mid-century, and by 15–29 days and 31–35 days, respectively, for the northern and southern production areas by late century. The level of uncertainty, as indicated by the ensemble range, is large, although the sign of the projected changes in storage parameters is consistent. This case study provides an example of the potentially large effects of climate change on the storage conditions for agricultural commodities.     

Mercury emission from terrestrial background surfaces in the eastern USA. Part I: Air/surface exchange of mercury within a southeastern deciduous forest (Tennessee) over one year

This study focused on the development of a seasonal data set of the Hg air/surface exchange over soils associated with low Hg containing surfaces in a deciduous forest in the southern USA. Data were collected every month for 11 months in 2004 within Standing Stone State Forest in Tennessee using the dynamic flux chamber method. Mercury air/surface exchange associated with the litter covered forest floor was very low with the annual mean daytime flux being 0.4 ± 0.5 ng m⁻² h⁻¹ (n = 301). The daytime Hg air/surface exchange over the year oscillated between emission (81% of samples with positive flux) and deposition (19% of samples with negative flux). A seasonal trend of lower emission in the spring and summer (closed canopy) relative to the fall and winter (open canopy) was observed. Correlations were found between the air/surface exchange and certain environmental factors on specific days sampled but not collectively over the entire year. The very low magnitude of Hg air/surface exchange as observed in this study suggests that an improved methodology for determining and reporting emission fluxes is needed when the values of fluxes and chamber blanks are both very low and comparable. This study raises questions and points to a need for more research regarding how to scale the Hg air/surface exchange for surfaces with very low emissions.     

Mercury emission from terrestrial background surfaces in the eastern USA. II: Air/surface exchange of mercury within forests from South Carolina to New England

Mercury air/surface exchange was measured over litter-covered soils with low Hg concentrations within various types of forests along the eastern seaboard of the USA. The fieldwork was conducted at six forested sites in state parks in South Carolina, North Carolina, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York and Maine from mid-May to early June 2005. The study showed that the Hg air/surface exchange was consistently very low and similar (overall daytime mean flux = 0.2 ± 0.9 ng m⁻² h⁻¹, n = 310, for all six sites monitored) with the various forest types. These flux values are comparable with those found in a year-long study in Tennessee (yearly daytime mean = 0.4 ± 0.5 ng m⁻² h⁻¹), but lower than many previous flux results reported for background soils. The Hg fluxes at all sites oscillated around zero, with many episodes of deposition (negative fluxes) occurring in both daytime and nighttime. While there were particular days showing significant correlations among the Hg air/surface exchange and certain environmental parameters, perhaps because of the low fluxes encountered, few significant correlations were found for any particular day of sampling between the Hg flux and environmental parameters such as solar radiation, soil temperature, air temperature (little variability seen), relative humidity, and ambient air Hg concentrations. Factors driving the Hg exchange as previously found for enriched soils may not hold for these background litter-covered forest soils. The results suggest that spatial variations of the Hg air/surface exchange were small among these different forest types for this particular time of year.     

The Taylor Creek Rhyolite of New Mexico: a rapidly emplaced field of lava domes and flows

The Tertiary Taylor Creek Rhyolite of southwest New Mexico comprises at least 20 lava domes and flows. Each of the lavas was erupted from its own vent, and the vents are distributed throughout a 20 km by 50 km area. The volume of the rhyolite and genetically associated pyroclastic deposits is at least 100 km³ (denserock equivalent). The rhyolite contains 15%–35% quartz, sanidine, plagioclase, ±biotite, ±hornblende phenocrysts. Quartz and sanidine account for about 98% of the phenocrysts and are present in roughly equal amounts. With rare exceptions, the groundmass consists of intergrowths of fine-grained silica and alkali feldspar. Whole-rock major-element composition varies little, and the rhyolite is metaluminous to weakly peraluminous; mean SiO₂ content is about 77.5±0.3%. Similarly, major-element compositions of the two feldsparphenocryst species also are nearly constant. However, whole-rock concentrations of some trace-elements vary as much as several hundred percent. Initial radiometric age determinations, all K–Ar and fission track, suggest that the rhyolite lava field grew during a period of at least 2 m.y. Subsequent ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar ages indicate that the period of growth was no more than 100 000 years. The time-space-composition relations thus suggest that the Taylor Creek Rhyolite was erupted from a single magma reservoir whose average width was at least 30 km, comparable in size to several penecontemporaneous nearby calderas. However, this rhyolite apparently is not related to a caldera structure. Possibly, the Taylor Creek Phyolite magma body never became sufficiently volatile rich to produce a large-volume pyroclastic eruption and associated caldera collapse, but instead leaked repeatedly to feed many relatively small domes and flows.The new ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar ages do not resolve preexisting unknown relative-age relations among the domes and flows of the lava field. Nonetheless, the indicated geologically brief period during which Taylor Creek Rhyolite magma was erupted imposes useful constraints for future evaluation of possible models for petrogenesis and the origin of trace-element characteristics of the system.