The tropospheric transport of pollutants and other substances to the oceans.

Date

1978

Authors

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

National Academy of Sciences

Abstract

Marine scientists have becoming increasingly concerned over the possible effects of pollutants in the marine environment. Concern is aroused as much by the lack knowledge about pollutants and their effects in, and over, the oceans as it is by specific known cases of deleterious impacts. Responding to these concerns, an executive meeting of the scientific committee on oceanic research (SCOR) of the international council of scientific unions (ICSU), In December 1974, called for an international workshop to assess the problem. After a few discussions, it was clear that there were two major subject areas: 1) specific pollutant and trace substances data and 2) transport and removal process. The first area was clearly the domain of chemists and the second, of atmospheric scientists. It was decided to organize the workshop participants into these two main categories and to set up panels within each. The workshop began with a plenary session in which the broad outlines of the multidisciplinary problems were presented. The session then dissolved into individual panel meetings. A strong effort was made at the initial session, and throughout the workshop, to encourage discussion between chemists and meteorologists. To this end, plenary sessions were held several times during the workshop so that progress reports could be presented by the panels for general comment and discussion. The ultimate objective of each panel was to produce a report that critically summarized present knowledge and made specific and realistic recommendations as to the types of measurements and program that would be necessary in order to make an accurate assessment of atmospheric transport fluxes to the oceans. Rough drafts of the reports were completed by the panels during the meeting. Subsequent to the meeting, copies of these reports were circulated to all panel chairman and other interested individuals for comments and criticisms; these were conveyed to the authoring panel. In this manner, the reports went though several stages of editing and modification before being incorporated into this present volume. The reports have not been altered in any substantive way by any persons other than the authoring panel members; thus these documents reflect solely the opinions of the panels.

Description

243 pgs.

Keywords

marine pollution, pollution, transport, oceans, troposphere, air

Citation