Review of the NARSTO Draft Report NARSTO Assessment of the Atmospheric Science on Particulate Matter (2002) / Chapter Skim
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3 Comments on the Assessment's Executive Summary
3 Comments on the Assessment's Executive Summary
Pages 17-30
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From page 17... ...
· A narrative titled "Highlights of the Assessment." The assessment cochairs indicated that they chose to structure the executive summary in this way so that it would be capable of speaking to three audiences: senior decision-makers, scientific advisers to the senior decision-makers, and the science and science-user community (M. Shepherd, Meteorological Service of Canada, personal communication, April 26, 2002~.
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From page 18... ...
The fourth section would step through the eight PQs, providing answers that would be useful to research managers (NARSTO objective 4) and linking the answers to specific atmospheric-science research accomplishments and needs (NARSTO objective 5~.
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From page 20... ...
As a result of that deficiency, the eight questions do not necessarily represent the highest-priority questions about PM identified by policy-makers themselves but, rather the policy-relevant questions about PM that the assessment authors thought were the most important, which could be substantially differentLikewise, as far as the committee can tell, no rigorous quantitative analysis was used to assess the responses. in their presentation to the committee, the assessment cochairs showed only bar graphs tabulating responses by decisionmakers to various questions (Vickery 2002~.
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From page 21... ...
The committee strongly recommends that social scientists with expertise in elicitation of information be engaged in the process of developing policy guidance for future assessments conducted by NARSTO. Introduction of the PM Standards Despite defining the PM problem in terms of exceeding existing or expected standards for ambient PM concentrations, the executive summary does not clearly introduce the standards in the three nations.
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From page 22... ...
The response to each PQ needs to include the scientific knowledge available to answer the question, which is basically the information provided in the current key insights. Presenting this scientific information with the PQ will clearly demonstrate that recent scientific advances relevant to policy needs have been made.
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From page 23... ...
Or PQ2 could be intended to describe the composition of PM and its likely sources, PQ3 to discuss broad control strategies that could be implemented nationally or over large regions, and PQ4 to identify sources that need to be controlled locally. The committee recommends that the three questions be clarified and that the responses given address them directly.
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From page 24... ...
To emphasize the point and to provide context, it would be useful to include statements such as, "There are X million people in Canada, X million people in Mexico, and X million people in the United States that live with average PM levels above Y ~~/m3." · There is considerable evidence suggesting health effects are associated with exposure to PM. A brief summary of the health effects should be provided, including discussion of some of the subtleties associated with the standards, such as these: - Thresholds for population health effects have not been observed (Schwartz et al.
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From page 25... ...
The committee also finds that it may be appropriate to discuss some issues of nonlinearity here, in particular how emission reductions are not necessarily linearly related to changes in ambient concentrations. This subject is described well in Chapter 2 of the draft and should be
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From page 26... ...
Recommendations that may be appropriate here include improving the understanding of carbonaceous aerosols, improving emission inventories and models, and conducting case studies similar to the ones discussed in this report for other areas. A shorter version of the wordy and somewhat unclear description of models that currently forms the response to PQ4 could be retained if it included a discussion of how models can be used to reduce uncertainties.
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From page 27... ...
· The color scheme intended to indicate significant expected changes in red, moderate changes in blue, and negligible or unknown effects in black is redundant with the qualifications of many of the effects with words like possible and small. Without careful reading of the footnotes, a reader may misinterpret the color scheme to indicate desired versus undesired effects, an added piece of information that may be more useful in any case.
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From page 28... ...
The response should begin with a clear and succinct summary statement of the present ability to measure progress in emission reductions, ambient concentrations, exposure, human health, and visibility. The summary statement should provide the reader with a general sense of the overall capability of the measurement techniques, monitoring network, and analytic tools available to measure progress.
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From page 29... ...
An example is in the designation of "research" techniques available to measure ambient concentrations of organic compounds; techniques are available to measure only some of the organic compounds. Indeed, discussion elsewhere in the draft assessment indicates that only a small fraction of the organic mass has been speciated even by the most advanced research methods (e.g., Figure 2.9~.
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From page 30... ...
Experiments in the laboratory help to improve the understanding of the chemical and physical mechanisms by which PM evolves in the atmosphere and provide critical input to models; this piece of a comprehensive research program should be mentioned. Second, there could be more discussion of why a mass-based standard may not lead to a reduction in the most toxic components of PM and how atmospheric scientists can assist the health-science community in addressing this topic.
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