UC San Diego Chemists Find Important Contributor to Smog

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/science/03-08Smog.asp

UC San Diego Chemists Find Important Contributor to Smog

March 20, 2008

By Kim McDonald

Chemists at the University of California, San Diego have discovered that a chemical reaction in the atmosphere above major cities long assumed to be unimportant in urban air pollution is in fact a significant contributor to urban ozone—the main component of smog.

Their finding, detailed in the March 21 issue of the journal Science, should help air quality experts devise better strategies to reduce ozone for the more than 300 counties across the United States with ozone levels that exceed new standards announced last week by the Environmental Protection Agency.

It should also benefit cities in the rest of the world such as Mexico City and Beijing that are now grappling with major air quality and urban smog problems. More than 100 million people worldwide currently live in cities that fail to meet international standards for air quality.

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The research was supported in part by the Petroleum Research Fund of the American Chemical Society and the National Science Foundation.