by Will P Gates  , Alastair JN MacLeod  , Andras Fehervari  , Abdelmalek Bouazza  , Daniel Gibbs  , Ryan Hackney  , Damien L Callahan  and Mathew Watts

Received: 16 September 2020;  Published: 31 December 2020;  doi: 10.21926/aeer.2004007

This review synthesises the available published research on interactions of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) with landfill liners, with the view to inform on the expected behaviour of these persistent environmental pollutants in landfills. The review addresses the nature and significant types of PFAS compounds that are destined for landfills, as well as their by-product. It discusses the known and anticipated interactions with separate landfill liner components, namely geomembranes, geosynthetic clay line [...]

by Peizeng Yang  , Yaye Wang  , Junhe Lu  , Viktor Tishchenko  and Qingguo Huang

Received: 02 November 2020;  Published: 29 December 2020;  doi: 10.21926/aeer.2004006

This study examined the degradation of perfluorooctanesulfonate (PFOS) in electrochemical oxidation (EO) processes in the presence of trichloroethylene (TCE). The EO experiment was performed in a gas-tight reactor using Magnéli phase titanium suboxide (Ti4O7) as the anode. The experimental data demonstrated that 75% of PFOS (2 μM) was degraded at 10 mA/cm2 current density in 30 min without TCE present in the solution, while the presence of 76 μM TCE apparently inhibited the degradation of PFOS, reducing its r [...]

by Gidon Eshel

Received: 03 August 2020;  Published: 25 December 2020;  doi: 10.21926/aeer.2004005

Environmentally motivated voluntary diet modifications are the focus of much research and public discourse. Yet the nuanced multi-faceted, multi-dimensional nature of agriculture-earth interactions, and limited public environmental knowledge likely combine to undermine the efficacy of environmentally motivated dietary shifts, squandering limited good will. To counter this, here I devise two related indices for crudely estimating importance of various environmental impacts of alternative dietary choices. Based on th [...]

by Keith D Hutchison  and Barbara Iisager

Received: 13 September 2020;  Published: 24 November 2020;  doi: 10.21926/aeer.2004004

The processes relevant to the verification of cloud forecasts generated by climate models are discussed from an engineering perspective. These processes include an assessment of cloud product requirements to be evaluated, the creation of a verification test plan including procedures and data to be analyzed, the development of independent sources of validation or truth datasets, and the quantitative comparisons between the cloud forecast products and the truth data needed to establish model performance. The engineer [...]

by Xuepeng Zhao

Received: 21 August 2020;  Published: 23 November 2020;  doi: 10.21926/aeer.2004003

Nearly 40 years of aerosol optical thickness (AOT) climate data record (CDR) from AVHRR satellite observations over the global ocean is used to study the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns and Australian bushfires on aerosol loading over downwind oceanic regions. Recent similar impact studies, by contrast, were mainly focused on the urban and suburban areas near the emission sources. AOT is used as a proxy for aerosol loading in our study. We found that AOT variations due to anthropogenic emission reduction during the lo [...]

by Boris S. Yurchak

Received: 28 July 2020;  Published: 10 November 2020;  doi: 10.21926/aeer.2004002

To increase the amount of information on the intensities of tropical cyclones (TC) used in climate research, the possibility of additional estimates of the intensity of a TC by exploring historical data of conventional (non-Doppler) airborne and coastal radars is considered. Based on the hyperbolic-logarithmic spiral (HLS) model of the streamline in the TC, an assessment of the maximum wind speed in hurricanes Cleo (1958), Carolina (1975) and Alicia (1983) was made. Literature sources containing radar signatures of [...]

by Nicole Mölders

Received: 11 August 2020;  Published: 17 August 2020;  doi: 10.21926/aeer.2003001