Talk:Particulate

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Contents 1 Are Clusters of Water Molecules considered a particulate ? 2 Removing Particulates 3 GreenFacts 4 Merge from Aerosol 5 Sources 6 Measurement 7 Further work needed 8 SulPHate vs SulFate 9 Aerosol contributions 10 a solid or a liquid suspended in a gas 11 air pollution causes weight gain 12 Arpan? 13 Map request 14 Indoor sources 15 Health Effects 16 'Particulates' is not English 16.1 Yes, according to Britannica 17 fine particles article merge into this one proposed 18 Moldy figures!! 18.1 Radiative forcing from aerosols 18.2 Sulfate aerosol 18.3 Black Carbon 18.4 Albedo effects 19 Requested move 19.1 Survey 19.2 Discussion

[edit] Are Clusters of Water Molecules considered a particulate ?

the article makes reference to 'liquid' / 'aerosol' and 'a gathering of a few molecules', but a water dimer is only two molecules, so at what number of molecules can I consider a cluster of water molecules to be within the particulate definition ? Teeteetee 14:40, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removing Particulates

How about someone add methods of removing particulates? Like electrostatic precipitation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Maelgwn (talk • contribs)

Generally, the removal processes need some work: we need at least to distinguish diffusion, impaction, interception, sedimentation, turbulent transport, in-cloud scavenging and sub-cloud scavenging. Oderbolz (talk) 09:44, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GreenFacts

I'd like to see the link to the GreenFacts summary removed, as Greenfacts is a questionable organisation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.120.3.212 (talk • contribs)

[edit] Merge from Aerosol

I have mergd the information from the aerosol page to here. It could do with some more tidying but it is a start. I'll work on sorting the links from aerosol which should be to this page next.--NHSavage 22:47, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Merge is completed. I have redirected the links as well. The ones to this page were mostly either chemical/biological weapons, health or atmospheric related.--NHSavage 16:58, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sources

Apart form natural vs. man made the difference between primary and secondary particles is important. Oderbolz (talk) 09:58, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Measurement

We need a measurement section, including sampling techniques (impactors, precipitators, cyclones) and measurement techniques (gravimetry, nephelometry, beta attenuation, TEOM, AMS, passive sampling, remote sensing) Oderbolz (talk) 10:33, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Further work needed

What seems to me to need doing on this now is:

• Expansion of the section on radiative forcing from aerosol
• Some explanation of the applications of aerosol technology (weapons, medicine, others)
• Better general introduction on aerosol as suspended particulate matter.

NHSavage 16:58, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

With regards to radiative forcing, it would be worth mentioning that the radiation that aerosols reflect is in the visible range, as opposed to the radiation associated with greenhouse gases, in the infra-red. Aerosols reduce the amount of radiation reaching the earths surface, but this is not a good thing as it is that radiation that plants need to photosynthesise, and we need to see.

[edit] SulPHate vs SulFate

Someone just edited out Sulphate to Sulfate - however both spellings are correct by IUPAC rules, and the spelling distinction is explained here. To avoid swapping the two spelling versions on a near-constant basis, I suggest to just leave it as is. --Carboxen 04:52, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

According to this guideline, you are wrong. I think we should standardise on Sulfur (even though I am British). And the article already has 8 occurances of sulF* and only 2 of SulPH* --NHSavage 20:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Aerosol contributions

I direct the Center for Atmospheric Particle Studies (CAPS) at Carnegie Mellon [1]. We are interested in contributing to this and related pages. However, I don't want to just dive in before initiating a discussion. The essential details are present on this page -- I would make several minor tweaks but mostly add content on linked pages.

An intial comment is pedantic. There is something of a consensus in the community for using 'particulate' as an adjective only (this is the first definition in any event) and 'particle' as the noun. `Aerosol' is a bit ambiguous, but a suspension of particles and vapors in equilibrium seems to have won out (meaning that 'aerosol' can be taken to mean both the particles and vapors together), though often only the suspended particles are meant (for example `secondary organic aerosol'). I therefore suggest that the title of this page be changed to 'atmospheric particles' or 'aerosol'.

I could imagine getting several colleagues to contribute pages -- for example Jose Jiminez (Colorado) and Hugh Coe (U Manchester) on aerosol mass spectrometry, myself on secondary organic aerosol, Peter Adams (CMU) on aerosol and climate, Yinon Rudich (Weizmann Institute) on heterogeneous chemistry, etc.

ps -- I don't care at all about sulfate vs sulphate. Neilmd 14:07, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Neilmd, I'd be very happy for you to dive in now. I'd also be happy for you to go with the "something of a consensus" view from "the community" but remember the wider community (ie those outside the field) may be trying to comprehend your additions/contributions --Teeteetee 19:23, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I would like to see this page be entitled "Atmospheric Aerosol". I think "particles" are too general, as searches often turn up a variety of things like subatomic particles.--Ryanmoffet 22:15, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] a solid or a liquid suspended in a gas

Ordinary meteorological water clouds and water ice clouds would seem to meet the definitions of "smokes" and "aerosols" at the top of the page, but the article omits them from any mention, even to explain their absence.

This isn't a joke. I came here to figure out if regular clouds are "aerosols" or not. 67.168.216.176 15:38, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

         I have exactly the same question. -- Catherine

[edit] air pollution causes weight gain

The following I think is a joke. Someone may have tried to corrupt the information on this page by adding this comment which can only be described as ridiculous:

"thus, during episodes of poor air quality, a noticeable weight gain can be observed within the population causing major health concerns."

Billtubbs 21:55, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Arpan?

What is the meaning of the subject header "Arpan"? -- Beland 16:17, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Map request

It is requested that a map or maps be included in this article to improve its quality.

It would be interesting to show a world map of atmospheric particulate concentration in the "affected areas" section. -- Beland 16:37, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Indoor sources

Would it be worth also discussing particulates arising in enclosed spaces such as homes, offices and factories? E.g., does smoking contribute? A recent article suggests that certain laser printers can distribute particles. [2]. Horatio 09:18, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Health Effects

The value 200,000 deaths needs a reference which seems to be correct . The following source indicates 95k-382k premature deaths per year. http://www.umweltdaten.de/uid/manual/healthrisk.pdf p10.

p31 has a nice diagram that could be shown on the side of this section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jontw (talk • contribs) 16:22, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 'Particulates' is not English

the title of the page should be changed to 'Particulate Matter'. The opening sentance would read 'Particulate Matter refers to airborne liquid or solid particles, sometimes incorrectly reffered to as 'particulates'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.96.176.66 (talk) 15:31, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Yes, according to Britannica

I am not a native English speaker, but you are up against several book titles and e.g. this search[3] in the Britannica dictionary... --Claus Hindsgaul 17:05, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

... or how about the singular form? I would guess that this is a shortened back-formation from "particulate matter" but it does also seem to be in wide use in the world press (google search on "particulate -matter -particulates" ). Some mention of the variable singular and plural forms in the introduction might be in order. Correct English or not, there are likely many things that scientists and technologists would not deign to consult an English academician about (it would just be the tip of an iceberg), never mind vice versa. Even if it is "wrong" or "bad English", we should probably strive for a qualified descriptive tone in this article, not a prescriptive one.

Aside from that, I believe "particulate matter" would be the most formal and centrally agreed upon technical term (English and Physics mongers feel free to correct me on this) and would support renaming the article to that, with appropriate edits.

Per "what links here", there look to be about 295 articles that refer to this one. Making the switch without lots of multiple redirects (as far as I know, a frowned upon wikipedia practice) might be a bit time-consuming.

This issue also popped up for the pollution article, where the issue was renaming it to "environmental pollution". It seems to me that a bot that could do this would help out a lot. Does anyone know of any? I guess there's something to be said for naming an article optimally the first time, or before a stack of links to it sprout up. -Onceler 23:48, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] fine particles article merge into this one proposed

I posted on the other article as well. It shouldn't be a big deal, but here's to doing things by the wiki. I think replacing the other article with a redirect is all that is needed as this one already has the term in bold. Oh and carrying over the reference/category info as well. -Onceler 09:09, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I second that. --Claus Hindsgaul 06:48, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Merge completed. -Onceler 10:21, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Moldy figures!!

[edit] Radiative forcing from aerosols

Section 2.4.5.6, page 180 of the latest IPCC report (AR4) states:

"As in the TAR, only the aerosol interaction in the context of liquid water clouds is assessed, with knowledge of the interaction with ice clouds deemed insufficient. Since the TAR, the cloud albedo effect has been estimated in a more systematic way, and more modelling results are now available. Models now are more advanced in capturing the complexity of the aerosol-cloud interactions through forward computations. Even though major uncertainties remain, clear progress has been made, leading to a convergence of the estimates from the different modelling efforts."

Which seems to be in opposition to the view expressed in the TAR, as quoted in this section.

[edit] Sulfate aerosol

This section links to the TAR and contains the old error ranges. The latest report states (p. 160):

"The mean and median of the sulphate direct RF from grouping all these studies together are identical at –0.41 W m–2. Disregarding the strongest and weakest direct RF estimates to approximate the 90% confidence interval leads to an estimate of -0.4 +/- 0.2 W m-2."

[edit] Black Carbon

Confusingly, the section entitled 'Black Carbon' states: "BC from fossil fuels is estimated by the IPCC in the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC, TAR, ". Is that a joke or something? The quoted figures, however, are certainly not from the latest report. Table 2.12 on page 204 states very clearly that the direct RF due to fossil fuel BC is +0.20 +/- 0.15, while the indirect RF caused by the surface albedo due to BC aerosol on snow is +0.10 +/-0.10.

[edit] Albedo effects

I have no idea why the next paragraph is not listed under its own heading of 'Albedo effects', but it surely doesn't belong in such confusingly close proximity to the paragraph on BC.

All quotes and figures are from:

Forster, P., V. Ramaswamy, P. Artaxo, T. Berntsen, R. Betts, D.W. Fahey, J. Haywood, J. Lean, D.C. Lowe, G. Myhre, J. Nganga, R. Prinn, G. Raga, M. Schulz and R. Van Dorland, 2007: Changes in Atmospheric Constituents and in Radiative Forcing. In: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K.B. Averyt, M.Tignor and H.L. Miller (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.

Elusiveneutrino (talk) 03:01, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move