OUR ENVIRONMENT

Sunday September 14, 2008

Ground Level Ozone:
the Bad Ozone

 

Gilbert N. Hanson

7:00 p.m. ESS 001

Sunday  October 19, 2008

Sustainability and
Stony Brook Southampton: a New Paradigm in Education

Martin Schoonen

7:00 p.m. ESS 001

Sunday November 9, 2008

TBA

7:00 p.m. ESS 001

This Science Night series will consider Environmental Concerns that directly impact
Long Island and Metropolitan New York.

Link here to be placed on the mail or e-mail list to receive announcements.

Directions to ESS Building at Stony Brook University

Teachers and Professional Geologists can receive
In-service Credit

Link to previous offerings Fall 2007, Spring 2008


Ground Level Ozone: the Bad Ozone

Gilbert N. Hanson

Sunday September 14, 2008

7:00 p.m. ESS 001

The American Lung Association (2008) gives Suffolk County an F, as in Failing, for the periods of high concentrations of ground level ozone in its air. Even at low levels ozone can reduce lung function; cause acute respiratory problems; aggravate asthma; cause inflammation of lung tissue; and increase susceptibility to respiratory infection. People begin feeling the effects of ozone at levels greater than 50 ppb.

Ground level ozone is also dangerous to plants. Increased levels of zone result in foliar injury and reduced growth in plants. This results in reduced crop yields and forest production. Plants can be affected at levels of 40 ppb and serious damage can occur at levels greater than 80 ppb.

Ground level ozone is directly related to motor vehicle exhaust. It is created when sunlight on a hot sunny day interacts with organic compounds and nitrogen oxides in the atmosphere forming smog and ozone. Often the highest concentrations of ground level ozone are downwind of metropolitan areas, such as Suffolk County, where natural organic compounds from forested areas react with the nitrogen oxides. Prior to World War II background levels of ground level ozone were 10 to 20 ppb. Background levels are expected to increase by 0.5–2% per year as a result of increased global emissions of nitrogen oxides unless there is an effort to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions on a global scale. With continued global warming we can expect an increase in the number of hot summer days which will result in increased ozone production added to an expected increase in background ozone.

Pertinent Links

Lower atmosphere basics: Ozone Smog

American Lung Association "State of the Air 2008" Suffolk County, NY gets an F for Ozone Pollution

How to identify ozone injury on eastern forest bioindicator plants

Handbook for assessment of foliar ozone injury on vegetation in the National Parks.

Global economic effects of changes in crops, pasture, and forests due to changing climate, carbon dioxide, and ozone


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Sustainability
and
Stony Brook Southampton:
a New Paradigm in Education

Martin Schoonen

Sunday October 19, 2008
7:00 p.m. ESS 001

Sustainability is rapidly becoming a buzzword along with “greening”.  Global population growth, rising energy consumption, shrinking non-renewable energy resources, and loss of arable land are some of the factors that conspire to force a change in human behavior.  The transformation to a sustainable society will require a rethinking of current consumption patterns, transportation systems, and housing among other things.  To affect the transition to a sustainable society will require a new cadre of professionals.  Professionals who have been trained in tackling the complex problems at hand.  At Stony Brook Southampton we have initiated several new program that have been designed to train this next generation of professionals at the undergraduate level.   

Martin Schoonen, Interim Dean of Stony Brook Southampton, will introduce the concept of sustainability and discuss the new program launched at Southampton.  

Martin Schoonen joined the faculty of the Department of Geosciences at Stony Brook in 1989 after completing his Ph.D in Geochemistry and Mineralogy at Penn State in 1989.  He assumed the position of Interim Dean of Southampton in September of 2006.

Link to Stony Brook Southampton web site.

 


 

If your school requires that you have a sequence of educational opportunities in order to receive in-service credit, please advise them that during the Fall Semester we will be offering one-hour of in-service credit for each of the: