[neilep (OP)]

Dearest Coastal Atmosphereologists,

As a sheepy I of course luff the coast...

look here's one.

 [ Invalid Attachment ]

Nice eh ?..being delivered next Tuesday.
Coasts are my all time favourite bits of a country that are next to the sea !

I do have this longing to live by the sea and one always has this feeling of refreshment, fresh air anf going to Bingo with old people..

but, is the air really fresher ?,..really cleaner ?...or is it just an old sheepys fantasy/imagination ?


I wish I knew...Oh how I really wish I knew !!


Please help me know.


Is the air by the sea fresher than the air inland ?


Thanks




neil
I do Like To be beside The Seaside
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ps: Kwik Kwiz...which coastal place is that in the piccy above?

[Chemistry4me]

Coastal areas with sea breezes typically have less air pollution than inland areas.
It may be advisable to go to the coast when air pollution is high inland if you or your children wish to play or exercise vigorously (says the American Lung Association)

[neilep (OP)]

Coastal areas with sea breezes typically have less air pollution than inland areas.
It may be advisable to go to the coast when air pollution is high inland if you or your children wish to play or exercise vigorously (says the American Lung Association)

This is super dooper !...I will go to the coast as ofetn as I can. Thanks you chemistry4 me

[Don_1]

It is said to have something to do with the ozone.

I usually park the car in the Dolphin zone myself, it's nearer the toilets.

[Make it Lady]

Isn't the dolphin zone in the sea? Oh, that means you must go to the toilet in the sea then!

The air by the sea is better on a hot day as the fresh air will blow in off the sea. I'm not sure it would be as good on a summers night as the breeze will blow from the land to the sea.

[Don_1]

Who little old me, do a pee in the sea?

[Make it Lady]

I don't think the ozone is so good though!

Low-level ozone is one of the pollutants that can make life for people with breathing difficulties very uncomfortable indeed and has a particularly damaging effect on children and elderly people, so is monitored continuously with warnings given if the concentrations exceed certain critical levels. It is also thought to damage rubber, nylon, plastics, dyes and paints.
Don't go to a sea side with any industry near by or with lots of shipping traffic as the nitrogen oxides that they give off combine with salt spay from the sea to form nitryl chloride. In the daytime the sunlight will break down the nitryl chloride producing chlorine atoms. These chlorine atoms play a key role in causing the polluting ozone to form.   

[dentstudent]

It is said to have something to do with the ozone.

I usually park the car in the Dolphin zone myself, it's nearer the toilets.

So if you're busting, is that an endolphin rush?

[lyner]

I believe that the ozone thing is a myth. Ozone gets produced in electric sparks; that 'electric motor smell'.  Rotting seaweed has a very similar smell. Your lungfull of ozone, when you're at the seaside, is rotting veg gas.
I would concur with that because, as soon as you get  a bit offshore, the smell is a lot less - you'd expect it to be more, if it were just the sea.

[Make it Lady]

I have edited my message above showing why ozone levels are high by the sea.

[paul.fr]

Guessing someone would mention Ozone, I had this handy link ready...

As a child, I remember going with my parents to the seaside, and being told to "smell the ozone", as it was healthy and good for me. This belief is all through our literature, and of course, in the advertising blurbs of companies selling ozone products that you just can't live without. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, hospitals were built at the seaside specifically to get the healthy ocean air. The Collins dictionary defines ozone as "clean bracing air as found at the sea side", while the Macquarie dictionary calls it "clear, invigorating, fresh air".

But we were all duped. Professor Andrew Johnston from the University of East Anglia says that "we were misled, twice over. Firstly, because that distinctive (seaside) smell is not ozone, it is dimethyl sulphide. And secondly, because inhaling it is not necessarily good for you." Professor Johnston discovered this by analyzing the smells from the mud of the Stiffkey saltmarsh on the Norfolk coast of Great Britain.

Our atmosphere is made up of about 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen. These oxygen molecules are made of two oxygen atoms stuck together.

But there is also another form of oxygen called ozone – which has three oxygen atoms stuck together. The odour of ozone was first noted around electrical machines around 1785, and the fact that it was made of three oxygen atoms was worked out in 1872. Ozone has become famous over the last few decades via the "hole in the ozone layer". In the stratosphere, some 8-30 kilometres above the ground, the ozone protects us from ultraviolet radiation. But down at ground level, high levels of ozone can irritate the eyes and mucous membranes.

We're not sure exactly how the myth of ozone at the seaside started. Maybe people thought that because ozone had one extra oxygen atom, it was somehow better than the regular oxygen molecules in air. Ozone has an odour similar to very dilute chlorine – and the seaside sometimes has this odour as well. Perhaps this similarity was enough to start the "seaside-ozone-is-good-for-you" movement, which reached its peak in the late 19th century.

But the smell at the seaside is not even ozone. It's a very different chemical called dimethyl sulphide, or DMS.

DMS has become achieved fame with scientists over the last few decades – not least, because it can affect the climate on our planet.

DMS is a clear inflammable liquid under 38oC, but can exist as a gas at lower temperatures. It has some industrial uses - from enhancing corn flavours in food, to refining petrol. It is also one of the main odours in black truffles (which are delicious underground fungi), but it rapidly fades upon exposure to air.

In the ocean, many of the creatures make DMS, which is then dumped into the water around them. For example, plankton release DMS when they are attacked by bigger creatures. Some species of crustaceans and sea birds (petrels, shearwaters, etc) can sense very low levels of DMS, and will swoop in, following the smell, to eat the bigger creatures, while they are in the act of eating the plankton. What carnage! Even tiny creatures, like bacteria, also release DMS.

In fact, a huge quantity of DMS is released from the ocean, some 30-50 million tonnes per year. This is large enough to affect the weather. In the atmosphere, the DMS gets converted to other chemicals, which in turn, can trigger the production of clouds. The clouds can then reflect the sunlight and so, are thought to be significantly involved in cooling the Earth.

But meanwhile, back beside the seaside, DMS in high concentrations is an irritant to the eyes and mucous membranes – but you're safe with the levels you usually get at the beach. DMS is not the only component of the "seaside smell" – various other chemicals, including those coming from algae, icecream and sunscreen, are involved. But ozone ain't one of them.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2007/06/27/1963637.htm?site=science/greatmomentsinscience&topic=enviro

[Make it Lady]

Stick this in your DMS pipe! http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13600

[Karen W.]

Dearest Coastal Atmosphereologists,

As a sheepy I of course luff the coast...

look here's one.

 [ Invalid Attachment ]

Nice eh ?..being delivered next Tuesday.
Coasts are my all time favourite bits of a country that are next to the sea !

I do have this longing to live by the sea and one always has this feeling of refreshment, fresh air anf going to Bingo with old people..

but, is the air really fresher ?,..really cleaner ?...or is it just an old sheepys fantasy/imagination ?


I wish I knew...Oh how I really wish I knew !!


Please help me know.


Is the air by the sea fresher than the air inland ?


Thanks




neil
I do Like To be beside The Seaside
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


ps: Kwik Kwiz...which coastal place is that in the piccy above?

Neily It is a lovely beach.. I have never been on a beach with sand that color! Ours is a grayer color.

Is it a beach in Florida somewhere? Perhaps Italy? Yikes I don't even know if Italy borders the beaches anywhere.. but I am assuming so!

[neilep (OP)]

Thanks All for the great replies and the info therein.

It's actually Bournemouth

[Karen W.]

Thanks. Large population in that place!

[neilep (OP)]

Thanks. Large population in that place!

Do ewe really think so ?

What's the population of your town Kareny mam ?

[Karen W.]

Population Blue lake, California
Population in July 2007: 1,105.
Now updated to 1,200...as at bottom..more recent count.

I live here in between all the others...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fieldbrook,_California

Population For Fieldbrook Ca,

Fieldbrook is a small (population roughly 200) unincorporated town located in Humboldt County on California's North Coast, approximately 300 miles (480km) north of San Francisco and 65 miles (100km) south of the Oregon state line. Located on the edge of the dense redwood forest, the area was once the domain of the thriving lumber companies, as is the case with the rest of the forest. Fieldbrook is six miles (10km) east of the larger unincorporated seaside town of McKinleyville (population 15,000), site of the Arcata-Eureka Airport, approximately ten miles (16km) northeast of the harbor city of Arcata (population 18,000), home of Humboldt State University, and about thirty miles (50km) north of the city of Eureka (population 28,000), the Humboldt County seat. This puts Fieldbrook at the northern edge of the McKinleyville-Arcata-Eureka-Fortuna corridor along US Highway 101, where about eighty percent of rural Humboldt County's population lives and most of its businesses are located. The ZIP Code is 95519. The community is inside area code 707.

Fieldbrook is located at the right-angle bend where Murray Road becomes Fieldbrook Road. In the mid-1990s Fieldbrook was a stereotypical sleepy country hamlet, with junk cars sitting in weedy yards along the main road in one block and goats grazing alongside a church in the next. With the decline of the local timber industry, the diaspora of telecommuting professionals, and the sudden emergence of the North Coast as a retirement destination, Fieldbrook with its mild weather (summer temperatures seldom exceed 75F/24C and winter nights rarely drop below 38F/4C) has recently been undergoing gentrification. Sprawling ranch-style (single-story) homes on isolated 5-acre (20,000 m2) lots wedged between timber tracts are selling for $500,000, and at least one 40-acre (160,000 m2) timber tract has become a gated community.

The few blocks of paved and unpaved roads that comprise Fieldbrook proper include modest homes, an elementary school and two churches, as well as a general store, a winery and an apple orchard that host public events. Larger residences whose owners identify with the Fieldbrook community continue south along Fieldbrook Road as it heads inland and uphill 6 miles (10km) to the small city of Blue Lake (population 1,200) at the foot of the Coast Range. The road connects there with State Highway 299, a rather adventurous winding route that crosses the mountains and connects with Interstate Highway 5 in Redding, about 90 miles (150km) east.

Fieldbrook is very nearly on the north bank of the Mad River, which flows into the Pacific Ocean between Arcata and McKinleyville. Although the Mad River supplies the water to much of Humboldt County's population, that small population does not have a significant impact on the river's flow. The water table is very high in its vicinity and very little land is suitable for building--as suggested by the name "Field-brook." The north side of Fieldbrook Road is second-growth (coppice, multiple thinner trunks sprouting from the stumps of harvested trees) redwood forest with the occasional clearing for a house, and the logging rules allow the forest canopy to maintain a height of 200-300 feet (65-100m). A narrow zone adjacent to the road is maintained as an unlogged buffer, presenting the illusion of virgin forest to tourists, but even on the north side of the buffer, in any given year the majority of the timber tracts have been growing for at least seven years, comprising a wilderness if not exactly parkland. The region abounds with wildlife and residents routinely find deer and elk grazing in their yards, foxes and raccoons digging through their garbage, the occasional black bear checking for an unlocked pantry, or a cougar prowling for a tasty little dog.



Population for Arcata, California
16,651

Mckinleyville, California
Population in July 2007: 13,864.
Males: 6,787   (49.0%)
Females: 7,077   (51.0%)

Eureka, California
Population in July 2007: 25,396.

[Andrew K Fletcher]

Humidity is a serious problem by the Sea Neil

High humidity makes us lethargic and causes neurological, circulatory and arthritic conditions to become more prevalent in river valley areas and coastal areas.

I researched the connection with MS and high humidity and sent out a questionnaire to many people with MS and the feedback was almost always high humidity produces relapses and makes conditions worse.
It is no coincidence that the old sailor walks on sticks and retires to a life of pain and eroding joints!

People living in river valley areas find high humidity a serious problem and in many of these areas there is often a mass exodus to higher ground in order to breath more freely and shake off the lethargic effects of too much moisture in the air.

I have worked in a river valley area and been reduced to feeling extremely tired, unable to walk more than a few paces, overheating and sweating profusely, yet no sooner I was out of the valley and the oppressive localised atmosphere, my energy and strength came flooding right back. Then I did not know why, now I do!
 
2 studies in the Rhone Valley found the incidence of MS way over the national average for France.

High incidence and prevalence of multiple sclerosis in south east Scotland: evidence of a genetic predisposition.
Rothwell PM, Charlton D.
Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, Scotland. peter.rothwell@clneuro.ox.ac.uk
OBJECTIVE: To determine the incidence and prevalence of multiple sclerosis in the Lothian and Border Health Board Regions of south east Scotland. METHODS: Incidence study: all patients were identified in whom a diagnosis of Poser category probable or definite multiple sclerosis was made by a neurologist between 1992 and 1995. Prevalence study: all patients known to have multiple sclerosis who were alive and resident in the study area on 15 March 1995 were recorded. RESULTS: The crude annual incidence rates of probable or definite multiple sclerosis per 100000 population were the highest ever reported: 12.2 (95% confidence interval (95% CI) 10.8-13.7) in the Lothian Region and 10.1 (95% CI 6.6-13.6) in the Border Region. A total of 1613 patients with multiple sclerosis were resident in the study area, giving standardised prevalence rates per 100000 population of 203 (95% CI 192-214) in the Lothian Region and 219 (95% CI 191-251) in the Border Region. Prevalent cases were more likely than expected to have a Scottish surname (risk ratio 1.24, 95% CI 1.14-1.34). CONCLUSION: Orkney and Shetland were previously thought to have by far the highest prevalence of multiple sclerosis in the world: about double that found in England and Wales. However, the prevalence in south east Scotland is equally high, suggesting that the Scottish population as a whole has a genetic susceptibility to the disease, and undermining the hypothesis that patterns of infection specific to small sparsely populated island communities are important in the causation of multiple sclerosis.



Humidity has a bad effect on Multiple Sclerosis , but air conditioning can make all the difference.
http://www.msrc.co.uk/index.cfm?fuseaction=show&pageid=669&CFID=259318&CFTOKEN=36801864

A dehumidifier to remove excess moisture from your home is advisable by the coast. Other than that the air is cleaner than inland.

[paul.fr]

Andrew, I am guessing this was relative humidity, not absolute or specific. Did these people take their own readings, guess, or simply look at the forecast for their region?

If it was RH, then why choose that and not dew point? Dew point is also a good indicator of the air’s actual water vapor content, unlike relative humidity, which takes the air’s temperature into account.

[Karen W.]

Thanks. Large population in that place!

Do ewe really think so ?

What's the population of your town Kareny mam ?

 Sorry it took me so long to total  this........
Bournemouth has a population of 163,444
 
All 5 of our local cities combined are only
62,400 total Population, so as you can see they are over more then 1 and 1/2 times bigger then all of us combined!
As I said I live in Fieldbrook pop. 200 who is trying to be incorporated by McKinleyvile and Arcata.....so at the moment I get mail in 3 different zip codes!