Black carbon (BC) emissions from China are of global concern. A new BC emission inventory (PKU-BC(China)) has been developed with the following improvements: (1) The emission factor database was updated; (2) a 0.1° × 0.1° gridded map was produced for 2007 based on county-level proxies; (3) time trends were derived for 1949–2007 and predicted for 2008–2050; and (4) the uncertainties associated with the inventory were quantified. It was estimated that 1957 Gg of BC were emitted in China in 2007, which is greater than previously reported.

Ambient air pollution is associated with numerous adverse health impacts. Previous assessments of global attributable disease burden have been limited to urban areas or by coarse spatial resolution of concentration estimates. Recent developments in remote sensing, global chemical-transport models, and improvements in coverage of surface measurements facilitate virtually complete spatially resolved global air pollutant concentration estimates.

This work aims to identify the geographic distribution of photovoltaic (PV) energy potential considering the effect of temperature on PV system performance. A simple framework is developed that uses the JIS C 8907 Japanese industrial standard to evaluate the effects of irradiation and temperature on PV potential. The global distributions of PV potential and yearly performance ratio are obtained by this framework. Generally, the performance ratio decreases with latitude because of temperature. However, regions with high altitude have higher performance ratios due to low temperature.

Aircraft emissions impact human health though degradation of air quality. The majority of previous analyses of air quality impacts from aviation have considered only landing and takeoff emissions. We show that aircraft cruise emissions impact human health over a hemispheric scale and provide the first estimate of premature mortalities attributable to aircraft emissions globally. We estimate ∼8000 premature mortalities per year are attributable to aircraft cruise emissions.

Aircraft emissions impact human health though degradation of air quality. The majority of previous analyses of air quality impacts from aviation have considered only landing and takeoff emissions. We show that aircraft cruise emissions impact human health over a hemispheric scale and provide the first estimate of premature mortalities attributable to aircraft emissions globally.

Beijing, the capital of China, has experienced rapid motorization since 1990; a trend that is likely to continue. The growth in vehicles and the corresponding emissions create challenges to improving the urban air quality.

Beijing, the capital of China, has experienced rapid motorization since
1990; a trend that is likely to continue. The growth in vehicles and
the corresponding emissions create challenges to improving the urban
air quality.

On April 15, Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) introduced the

Brazilian agriculture covers about one-third of the land area and is expected to expand further. We assessed the compliance of present Brazilian agriculture with environmental legislation and identified challenges for agricultural development connected to this legislation.

Despite great progress made in the past 25 years, acid deposition continues to cause widespread damage to the environment in Europe and eastern North America. Legislation to limit emissions of sulfur and nitrogen compounds in Europe is now under revision. The most recent protocol was based in part on the critical loads concept.