thermal pollution

noun

1. a rise in the temperature of rivers or lakes that is injurious to water-dwelling life and is caused by the disposal of heated industrial waste water or water from the cooling towers of nuclear power plants.

thermal pollution

1. The dumping of heated gas es or heated wastewater (often from electrical generating plants) into the air or water.

Thermal pollution of the air can affect the weather; thermal pollution of water can threaten plants or animals living in it.

Example Sentences

European rivers showed the most extensive thermal pollution, with readings often well above regulatory limits.

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But they also created that leverage, by seeing to it that thermal pollution was included in the Clean Water Act as a form of pollution.

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Catherine Raptis at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and her colleagues studied this 'thermal pollution', which can disrupt aquatic ecosystems.

Read more on Nature