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Slow-onset climate events (SOCEs) cause substantial impacts on human and natural systems, but research on exploring SOCEs and their effects is still limited. Therefore, changes of SOCEs in Thailand were statistically analysed based on a set of data including projected mean temperature, gridded altimetry sea level, salinity, and areal forest cover. Related information from available studies and reports was also compiled to complement our analysis. The important observed changes of SOCEs included (i) Thailand's mean temperature gradually rising towards the end of the 21st century, (ii) steady sea level rise accompanied by concomitant seawater intrusion, (iii) increasing areas of land degraded and affected by desertification, (iv) general decline in total forest cover with forest fires tending to increase over recent years, and (v) various plant and vertebrate species under multi-threats with most of them projected to considerably decline due to future climate change. Changes of SOCEs seem to have broad-ranging impacts on ecosystems and the well-being and health of Thai people. This study presented additional evidence and knowledge, responding well to the urgent needs to address SOCES in developing countries. To better avert, minimise and address loss and damage from SOCEs, however, future studies, especially quantitative assessment, are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is an editorial published in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science. It discusses the crucial issues of air quality, atmospheric environment, and climate change in low- and middle-income countries. The editorial highlights the complex relationship between air quality and climate change, emphasizing the need to reduce emissions for both improving air quality and mitigating the impact of climate change. It also mentions the severe air pollution problems faced by many developing countries in South Asia and Southeast Asia, particularly with regard to particulate matter (PM2.5) exceeding the World Health Organization's guidelines. The editorial introduces a research topic on air quality, atmospheric environment, and climate change in low- to upper-middle-income countries, and briefly summarizes the findings and highlights of seven articles published in this topic. These articles cover various aspects such as air quality modeling, bioaerosols, remote sensing, and the impact of electronic government on air quality. The document concludes by emphasizing the importance of understanding air pollution in the face of changing climatic conditions and land use patterns for effective planning and management strategies. [Extracted from the article]

Particulate matter less than 2.5 μm in diameter (PM2.5) pollution has gained more concern, as can be seen from the World Health Organization (WHO) revised air quality guideline (AQG) value. To compare with the 24-h AQG value, the 24-h mean (daily average) of hourly monitoring data has been widely used, but the nature of data in hourly variation has been lost. The 24-h moving average can be an alternative approach to preserving hourly data behavior, while various positions of the hour (leftmost, center, or rightmost hour) can be used to store the moving average. In this study, similarity testing by cross-correlation and Euclidean distance was performed to present a suitable 24-h moving average time series for hourly data, and then presented proportions of PM2.5 concentrations within each interim target and AQG ranges. The PM2.5 time series of the leftmost and rightmost 24-h moving average revealed lags of − 13 to − 10 h and 10 to 13 h for the observed hourly data, respectively. The lags of the center 24-h moving average time series were of − 2 to 1 h, which showed more similar events to the hourly PM2.5 fluctuation than the leftmost and rightmost time series. The center 24-h moving average concentrations measured in Bangkok were categorized into interim target and AQG ranges. The results revealed that the proportion of concentrations lower than AQG during nighttime and daytime was approximately 40 and 28%, respectively. However, the results given from the leftmost and rightmost time series showed time shifts and differences in diurnal variation caused by the position used to store the average value. To keep hourly PM2.5 variation that can be compared with the 24-h WHO guidelines, this should be performed with careful and precautionary consideration of misinterpretation over a time scale, especially for implementing countermeasures and policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Short-term air quality monitoring in a coastal area, Naklua Subdistrict, Pattaya, Thailand is an activity to support the designated area under Thailand's sustainable tourism development. This study provided a short-term monitoring data analysis on time series and Bivariate Polar Plot (BVP) to provide the status of air quality and to determine the potential source area of air pollution. The result showed that NO2, SO2, CO and PM10 were not higher than the national air quality standards, while the 24-hour average of PM2.5 and the 8-hour average of O3 were slightly higher than the World Health Organization (WHO) air quality guideline values. The nighttime PM2.5 concentration was higher than the daytime concentration, and its potential source area is urban areas in the south. However, the daytime O3 concentration is higher than the nighttime concentration. Its potential source area is from the northwest, where Sichang island is located. This result could be used to support air pollution management by controlling and reducing emissions in the potential source areas as the first priority. Also, the study revealed that the BVP technique could be used to determine the source area of air pollution in the coastal area, where wind circulation is more complex than that over the land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]