Atmospheric Scientists Identify Cleanest Air on Earth in First-of-Its-Kind Study
Phoenix666 writes:
Samples were collected during the NSF-funded SOCRATES field campaign, led by research scientist and coauthor Paul DeMott. Graduate student Kathryn Moore sampled the air in the marine boundary layer, the lower part of the atmosphere that has direct contact with the ocean, aboard the Research Vessel Investigator as it steamed south from Tasmania to the Antarctic ice edge. Research scientist and first author Jun Uetake examined the composition of airborne microbes captured from the ship. The atmosphere is full of these microorganisms dispersed over hundreds to thousands of kilometers by wind.
Using DNA sequencing, source tracking and wind back trajectories, Uetake determined the microbes' origins were marine, sourced from the ocean. Bacterial composition also was differentiated into broad latitudinal zones, suggesting aerosols from distant land masses and human activities, such as pollution or soil emissions driven by land use change, were not traveling south into Antarctic air.
It looks like Maatsuyker Island off the south coast of Tasmania is the cleanest air you're going to get.
Journal Reference
Jun Uetake, Thomas C. J. Hill, Kathryn A. Moore, et al. Airborne bacteria confirm the pristine nature of the Southern Ocean boundary layer [open], Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2000134117)
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