Air quality, as a phenomenon, refers to the physicochemical state of the atmosphere with respect to the presence, concentration, and reactivity of gaseous and particulate constituents, including criteria pollutants (e.g., ozone, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, particulate matter) and numerous hazardous air pollutants. It emerges from dynamic interactions among emission sources, atmospheric transport, dispersion, chemical transformation, and removal processes such as deposition and scavenging. Quantification of air quality relies on continuous or episodic monitoring, expressed through pollutant concentrations and composite indices, and is central to studying atmospheric chemistry, exposure assessment, and the impacts of atmospheric composition on biological, ecological, and material systems.
A research team led by the U.S. National Science Foundation National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF NCAR) has published a foundational inventory of emissions produced by structures destroyed by fires in the wildland-urban ...
Environment
Feb 18, 2026
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Imagine someone has chronic pain. One doctor focuses on the body part that hurts and keeps trying to fix that single symptom. Another uses a more comprehensive brain-body approach and tries to understand what's keeping the ...
Environment
Feb 17, 2026
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On a cool spring morning in a northern forest, the ground feels soft underfoot. Mist hangs between the trunks, and the air smells of wet leaves and old humus; the slow alchemy that keeps a forest alive. Beneath the surface, ...
Earth Sciences
Feb 17, 2026
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79
Fifteen years ago, Beijing's Liangma riverbanks would have been smog-choked and deserted in winter, but these days they are dotted with families and exercising pensioners most mornings.
Environment
Feb 17, 2026
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7
As millions of visitors prepare to descend on North Texas for the FIFA World Cup, city of Dallas officials say the global spotlight also brings local environmental responsibility.
Environment
Feb 13, 2026
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The Trump administration took a major step in its efforts to unravel America's climate policies on Feb. 12, 2026, when it moved to rescind the 2009 endangerment finding—a formal determination that six greenhouse gases that ...
Environment
Feb 13, 2026
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7
A drone equipped with low-cost air quality sensors has revealed unexpectedly high concentrations of particulate matter at around 100 meters above ground level in Delhi. These new vertical insights could play an important ...
Environment
Feb 12, 2026
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1
Ambitious climate action to improve global air quality could save up to 1.32 million lives per year by 2040, according to a new study. The research, led by Cardiff University, shows how developing countries rely heavily on ...
Environment
Feb 12, 2026
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China's sweeping efforts to clean up its air have delivered one of the biggest public health success stories of recent decades. Since the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan was launched in 2013, coal-fired power ...
Sometimes we humans get ahead of ourselves. We embark on grand engineering experiments without really understanding what the long-term implications of such projects are. Climate change itself is a perfect example of that—no ...
Space Exploration
Feb 6, 2026
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