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Brain damage skews our moral compass
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Andy Coghlan
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BRAD WENNER/FLICKR/GETTY
Brain damage skews our moral compass
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Monsoons send Asian pollution round the world ASIAN pollution is a global problem. Millions of tonnes of soot, sulphur dioxide and other pollutants are fasttracked into the stratosphere each year by the summer monsoon. “The monsoon is one of the most powerful atmospheric circulation systems on the planet, and it happens to form right over a heavily polluted region,” says William Randel of the US National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. The stratosphere begins about 10 | NewScientist | 3 April 2010
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12 kilometres up, above the troposphere where weather systems like the monsoon develop. Most pollution stays below the boundary between the two. However, by using satellite instruments to track hydrogen cyanide, a minor but telltale ingredient of the pollution, Randel and his colleagues found “pipes” of polluted air moving through the boundary. They think that the exceptional updraughts of air inside the monsoon’s giant clouds can bust through and send pollution deep into the stratosphere (Science, DOI: 10.1126/ science.1182274). This is where the planet’s ozone layer sits, filtering out ultraviolet radiation from the sun. The findings will trigger a radical
rethink about the state of the stratosphere. “Received wisdom has been that gases like sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides don’t make it into the stratosphere,” says Peter Bernath of the University of York, UK, a member of the research team. “Nitrogen oxides in particular are of concern,” he says, because they can destroy ozone. Sulphur dioxide can shroud the planet in a cooling haze. John Pyle, a specialist on the ozone layer at the University of Cambridge, agrees that the research
“The monsoon is extremely powerful, and it happens to form right over a heavily polluted region”
raises key questions. “How much will the transport of pollution change in the future, as emissions increase or the monsoon changes?” he says. It’s unclear whether climate change will weaken or intensify monsoons. In the lower atmosphere, pollutants like sulphur dioxide “rain out” of the air within days. But in the stratosphere they can stay aloft for years, spread by fast winds known as jets, meaning the threat is global. The effects may have already been unwittingly detected: researchers recently noted an increase in sulphate particles in the stratosphere around the globe, which could be linked to China’s rapid industrialisation over the past decade. Fred Pearce N
Andy Coghlan
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BRAD WENNER/FLICKR/GETTY
Brain damage skews our moral compass
“They judged attempted harm, including murder, as permissible as long as no actual harm was done” Qlmol_bbjlqflkÑpolibfk jlo^iab`fpflk*j^hfkd)If^kb Vlrkd^kaebo`liib^drbp^qqeb J^pp^`erpbqqpFkpqfqrqblc Qb`eklildvqrokbaqlkfkbmblmib telpbbjlqflk^iobpmlkpbptbob fjm^fobaarbqla^j^dbfkqeb sbkqoljbaf^imobcolkq^i`loqbu+ Vlrkdmobpbkqbaqebpbmblmib tfqe/1jlo^iafibjj^p)b^`e
Monsoons send Asian pollution round the world ASIAN pollution is a global problem. Millions of tonnes of soot, sulphur dioxide and other pollutants are fasttracked into the stratosphere each year by the summer monsoon. “The monsoon is one of the most powerful atmospheric circulation systems on the planet, and it happens to form right over a heavily polluted region,” says William Randel of the US National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. The stratosphere begins about 10 | NewScientist | 3 April 2010
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12 kilometres up, above the troposphere where weather systems like the monsoon develop. Most pollution stays below the boundary between the two. However, by using satellite instruments to track hydrogen cyanide, a minor but telltale ingredient of the pollution, Randel and his colleagues found “pipes” of polluted air moving through the boundary. They think that the exceptional updraughts of air inside the monsoon’s giant clouds can bust through and send pollution deep into the stratosphere (Science, DOI: 10.1126/ science.1182274). This is where the planet’s ozone layer sits, filtering out ultraviolet radiation from the sun. The findings will trigger a radical
rethink about the state of the stratosphere. “Received wisdom has been that gases like sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides don’t make it into the stratosphere,” says Peter Bernath of the University of York, UK, a member of the research team. “Nitrogen oxides in particular are of concern,” he says, because they can destroy ozone. Sulphur dioxide can shroud the planet in a cooling haze. John Pyle, a specialist on the ozone layer at the University of Cambridge, agrees that the research
“The monsoon is extremely powerful, and it happens to form right over a heavily polluted region”
raises key questions. “How much will the transport of pollution change in the future, as emissions increase or the monsoon changes?” he says. It’s unclear whether climate change will weaken or intensify monsoons. In the lower atmosphere, pollutants like sulphur dioxide “rain out” of the air within days. But in the stratosphere they can stay aloft for years, spread by fast winds known as jets, meaning the threat is global. The effects may have already been unwittingly detected: researchers recently noted an increase in sulphate particles in the stratosphere around the globe, which could be linked to China’s rapid industrialisation over the past decade. Fred Pearce N