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Trace atmospheric constituents. Properties, transformation and fates
ooo44981:83 13.00 + 0.00 Pergamon Press Ltd.
BOOK REVIEW
Trace Atmospheric Constituents. Properties, Tmnsformation and Fates, Voi. 12 Advances in Environmental Science and Technology Series, Edited by Stephen E. Schwartz, (Series Editor, Jerome 0. Nriagu) John Wiley % Sons, Inc., One Wiley Drive, Somerset, NJ 08873, 1983, xiii + 547 pp. Price $60.00. Some one of the Biblical commentaries I have at home remarked that the title of the second half of St. Luke’s history of the Christian movement was misleading. It should not be “The Acts of the Apostles” but “Some Acts of Some Apostles.” Analogously, it is likely that the title of the present volume really should be “Some Atmospheric Trace Constituents,” since the volume is nowhere near as encyclopedic in its coverage of all possible atmospheric trace constituents as, for example, the monograph, Atmospheric Chemistry, by Me’stiros. In fact, the primary focus of the present volume is on nitrogen, sulfur and carbon species, in about that order, with the emphasis in the last case being on elemental carbon. This is by no means all bad, since it is several years since either sulfur or carbonaceous species got this sort of attention. There are 12 chapters. Where I am acquainted with the authors, they appear to be excellent choices. Schwartz and White discuss the kinetics of reactive dissolutions of nitrogen oxides, a problem that has only recently attracted the attention it deserves. (This pair of authors is a reasonable choice; it is unclear whether the bilingual pun in this pair of names had any role in their final decision to collaborate.) Huey and Peterson discuss the reactions of tetravalent sulfur with transition metal ions. Hoffmann and Boyce look at the catalytic oxidation of sulfur dioxide by air in aqueous media. Chang and Novakov consider the role of carbon particles as catalytic surfaces. Eatough and Hansen relate their work on more complex tetravalent sulfur compounds in particulate matter. Winchester provides the one chapter explicitly devoted to acid rain. Wesely looks at surface ozone sinks, particularly biological ones. Anderson, and Stedman and Shetter, respectively, author chapters on the atmospheric nitrogen cycle in urban atmospheres and in the global atmosphere, and Levine and Schwartz and Peters and Carmichael, provide two chapters on varying aspects of the problem of modeling reactive species. The index appears better than average. There is no author index, and individual chapters have their own bibliographies. Here a reasonable degree of uniformity has been enforced, and all bibliographies use the same style, within rather narrow limits, and all are alphabetical. Inevitably, there are a certain number of typographical errors, most of which make little difference. Table 5 of Chapter 1is apparently intended to have a footnote d which is absent, and Chapter 3 makes a reference to a paper by Dasgupta that
does not appear in the bibliography. It is a great kindness that those chapters having significant mathematics each includes a tabfe of nomenclature. However, in Chapter 8, it is almost certain that the explanation of the symbols uL and u have been exchanged. Curiously, some of these tables are in alphabetical order and others are not. Regular readers know my penchant for cleaning up the vocabulary of our field. Chapter 3 talks about air oxidation, and refers to it by the term “autoxidation.” That is a very old term, but it is totally ambiguous. It literally means “selfoxidation,” of course, and its use began a couple of centuries ago when all that was known was that some substances changed when simply left alone (but in air). It has also been appbed to true self-oxtdations such as the Cannizzaro reaction, or the thermal dismutation of potassium chlorate. It would be highly desirable to eliminate “autoxidation” from our vocabulary; failing that, those using the term have an obligation to explain the sense in which it is used. These points aside, it would appear that the authors were not only well chosen but well motivated. The various chapters seem to be good reviews of the assigned topics, consistent with the viewpoints of the various contributors. Ofcourse, no such treatment can ever be exhaustive. I was surprised that, in a whole series of chapters dealing with one aspect or another of the oxidation of nitrogen and sulfur species, there was absolutely no mention of the claim by Bricard to have identified nitrosyl bisulfate in urban particulate matter, and Farlow’s claim of finding it in the stratosphere. Not everyone in the atmospheric research community is as confident of the findings of Eatough and Hansen concerning the ubiquity of S(IV) in particulate matter as these authors are, and it should certainly be part of the agenda for the near future for other researchers to duplicate their findings by independent methods. I am personally unaware of anyone to date who is actively pursuing this particular line of work. This becomes ~rtic~arly crucial for some species of either known or suspected high biological potency. There are undoubtedly other minor problems, and conceivably even major ones that simply lie outside my area of expertise. It is my impression that the bibliography of Chapter 2 is somewhat dated, with remarkably few entries after 1980 in the field in which there has been considerable recent activity. It is not clear whether this is a matter of an early preparation of this Chapter, a simple matter of taste, or just what. I did not go through every bibliography, but the majority seem at least to have some entries in 1982. To summarize, it could hardly be claimed that the book is beyond improvement, but those concerned with atmospheric reactions will find it a useful volume.
2641
JAMESP. LOWE, JR.
BOOK REVIEW
Trace Atmospheric Constituents. Properties, Tmnsformation and Fates, Voi. 12 Advances in Environmental Science and Technology Series, Edited by Stephen E. Schwartz, (Series Editor, Jerome 0. Nriagu) John Wiley % Sons, Inc., One Wiley Drive, Somerset, NJ 08873, 1983, xiii + 547 pp. Price $60.00. Some one of the Biblical commentaries I have at home remarked that the title of the second half of St. Luke’s history of the Christian movement was misleading. It should not be “The Acts of the Apostles” but “Some Acts of Some Apostles.” Analogously, it is likely that the title of the present volume really should be “Some Atmospheric Trace Constituents,” since the volume is nowhere near as encyclopedic in its coverage of all possible atmospheric trace constituents as, for example, the monograph, Atmospheric Chemistry, by Me’stiros. In fact, the primary focus of the present volume is on nitrogen, sulfur and carbon species, in about that order, with the emphasis in the last case being on elemental carbon. This is by no means all bad, since it is several years since either sulfur or carbonaceous species got this sort of attention. There are 12 chapters. Where I am acquainted with the authors, they appear to be excellent choices. Schwartz and White discuss the kinetics of reactive dissolutions of nitrogen oxides, a problem that has only recently attracted the attention it deserves. (This pair of authors is a reasonable choice; it is unclear whether the bilingual pun in this pair of names had any role in their final decision to collaborate.) Huey and Peterson discuss the reactions of tetravalent sulfur with transition metal ions. Hoffmann and Boyce look at the catalytic oxidation of sulfur dioxide by air in aqueous media. Chang and Novakov consider the role of carbon particles as catalytic surfaces. Eatough and Hansen relate their work on more complex tetravalent sulfur compounds in particulate matter. Winchester provides the one chapter explicitly devoted to acid rain. Wesely looks at surface ozone sinks, particularly biological ones. Anderson, and Stedman and Shetter, respectively, author chapters on the atmospheric nitrogen cycle in urban atmospheres and in the global atmosphere, and Levine and Schwartz and Peters and Carmichael, provide two chapters on varying aspects of the problem of modeling reactive species. The index appears better than average. There is no author index, and individual chapters have their own bibliographies. Here a reasonable degree of uniformity has been enforced, and all bibliographies use the same style, within rather narrow limits, and all are alphabetical. Inevitably, there are a certain number of typographical errors, most of which make little difference. Table 5 of Chapter 1is apparently intended to have a footnote d which is absent, and Chapter 3 makes a reference to a paper by Dasgupta that
does not appear in the bibliography. It is a great kindness that those chapters having significant mathematics each includes a tabfe of nomenclature. However, in Chapter 8, it is almost certain that the explanation of the symbols uL and u have been exchanged. Curiously, some of these tables are in alphabetical order and others are not. Regular readers know my penchant for cleaning up the vocabulary of our field. Chapter 3 talks about air oxidation, and refers to it by the term “autoxidation.” That is a very old term, but it is totally ambiguous. It literally means “selfoxidation,” of course, and its use began a couple of centuries ago when all that was known was that some substances changed when simply left alone (but in air). It has also been appbed to true self-oxtdations such as the Cannizzaro reaction, or the thermal dismutation of potassium chlorate. It would be highly desirable to eliminate “autoxidation” from our vocabulary; failing that, those using the term have an obligation to explain the sense in which it is used. These points aside, it would appear that the authors were not only well chosen but well motivated. The various chapters seem to be good reviews of the assigned topics, consistent with the viewpoints of the various contributors. Ofcourse, no such treatment can ever be exhaustive. I was surprised that, in a whole series of chapters dealing with one aspect or another of the oxidation of nitrogen and sulfur species, there was absolutely no mention of the claim by Bricard to have identified nitrosyl bisulfate in urban particulate matter, and Farlow’s claim of finding it in the stratosphere. Not everyone in the atmospheric research community is as confident of the findings of Eatough and Hansen concerning the ubiquity of S(IV) in particulate matter as these authors are, and it should certainly be part of the agenda for the near future for other researchers to duplicate their findings by independent methods. I am personally unaware of anyone to date who is actively pursuing this particular line of work. This becomes ~rtic~arly crucial for some species of either known or suspected high biological potency. There are undoubtedly other minor problems, and conceivably even major ones that simply lie outside my area of expertise. It is my impression that the bibliography of Chapter 2 is somewhat dated, with remarkably few entries after 1980 in the field in which there has been considerable recent activity. It is not clear whether this is a matter of an early preparation of this Chapter, a simple matter of taste, or just what. I did not go through every bibliography, but the majority seem at least to have some entries in 1982. To summarize, it could hardly be claimed that the book is beyond improvement, but those concerned with atmospheric reactions will find it a useful volume.
2641
JAMESP. LOWE, JR.