1. Click to edit Master title style Click to edit Master text styles –Second Level Third Level –Fourth Level »Fifth Level Atmospheric Aerosols as Indicators of Global Biogeochemical Changes Rudolf Husar Washington University St. Louis, USA Draft Presentation Prepared for the Induction into the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Budapest, June 23, 1998

2. Click to edit Master title style Click to edit Master text styles –Second Level Third Level –Fourth Level »Fifth Level The Physiology and Health Care of the Earth System The physicians evaluate a patient’s health by measuring the temperature, pulse rate, the cholesterol level and other vital signs. For diagnosis, doctors use many tools, like x-ray images, ultrasound scans, usually in combination.

3. Click to edit Master title style Click to edit Master text styles –Second Level Third Level –Fourth Level »Fifth Level The Earth is also like a living organism. According to the British scientist James Lovelock, it has become necessary to monitor the health of planet Earth. The reason is that the physical and chemical state of the Earth’s environment is constantly changing. The Earth is physically aging, and at the same time evolution is changing the biosphere. Some of the changes occur slowly in a steady fashion and they are foreseeable. However, many bio- geochemical changes occur quickly, unexpectedly, and they unevenly distributed in space and time. From human point of view, many of these changes are catastrophic events. Some of the changes, short and long term, are caused by human activites and therefor can be influenced by control actions

4. Click to edit Master title style Click to edit Master text styles –Second Level Third Level –Fourth Level »Fifth Level Human Sensory-Motor Response to Changes Regardless whether the Earth is considered ‘healthy’ or ‘sick’, the inevitable and unforeseeable environmental changes require the following major steps: The above three steps are the necessary conditions for sustainable development. This is logical since all living organisms use this type of sensory-motor feedback to maintain their existence. Sensing and recognition (monitoring) Reasoning and explaining (sciences) Decision making, action (management)

5. Click to edit Master title style Click to edit Master text styles –Second Level Third Level –Fourth Level »Fifth Level DigitalEarth

6. Click to edit Master title style Click to edit Master text styles –Second Level Third Level –Fourth Level »Fifth Level Sensing and Monitoring Today’s earth scientists evaluate the physiology of planet earth also by monitoring the temperature, carbon dioxide, ozone, biomass, cloudiness, and many other paramters as the vital signs of the interconnected Earth System. The observational instruments of earth sciences include thermometers, chemical sampling analysis of air, land and water, as well as earth observing satellites. Dust storms, forest fires, volcanic emissions and anthropogenic fuel combustion are major biogeochemical processes that are visualized by aerosols.

7. Click to edit Master title style Click to edit Master text styles –Second Level Third Level –Fourth Level »Fifth Level Major Biogeochemical Processes Visualized by Aerosols Dust storms VolcanoesAnthropogenic pollution These processes are producing visible aerosols in form of dust, smoke, and haze. The quantity and spatial-temporal distribution of dust and smoke and haze can be used to characterize the flow of substances through the atmosphere. Fires

8. Click to edit Master title style Click to edit Master text styles –Second Level Third Level –Fourth Level »Fifth Level Just like the human eye, satellite sensors detect the total amount of solar radiation that is reflected from the earth’s surface (R o ) and backscattered by the atmosphere from aerosol, pure air, and clouds. A simplified expression for the relative radiatioin detected by a satellite sensor (I/I o ) is: I / I o = R o e -  + (1- e -  ) P Satellite Detection of Aerosols Today, geo-synchronous and polar orbiting satellites can detect different aspects of aerosols over the globe daily. where  is the aerosol optical thickness and P the angular light scattering probability.

9. Click to edit Master title style Click to edit Master text styles –Second Level Third Level –Fourth Level »Fifth Level Explaining Change The basic elements of life including carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, calcium are in constant circulation between the earth’s major environmental compartments: atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, and biosphere. These earth’s compartments remain in balance as long as the rate of flow of matter and energy in and out of the compartments is unchanged. Changes in the environmental compartments will occur if the circulation (in and out flow) of the substances is perturbed. For example, the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been increasing because the rate of input is larger than the rate of output from the atmosphere.

10. Click to edit Master title style Click to edit Master text styles –Second Level Third Level –Fourth Level »Fifth Level GAIN Global Aerosol Information Network Biomass burning - biogeochemists Vulcanologists Radiative effects-Climate Change Pollution monitoring- Control Health effects Aeolian dust - geologists Recommendations: Global Aerosol Watch with GAIN We recommend the establishment of an internet-based global aerosol watch system, where a few experienced observers distributed all over the world would monitor the daily aerosol pattern for interesting dust, smoke, or haze aerosol events. They would utilize the publicly available on-line satellite, surface monitoring, and meteorological modeling data provided by many countries. When an interesting event would occur, the relevant science and management communities would be alerted through a Global Aerosol Information Network (GAIN). Given the alert the communities could initiate more intense monitoring and/or prepare the public for the developing risks. The GAIN system would also be used for communication and sharing of internet-based information resources.