A “new peak of air pollution” every August exposes as many as 130 million people to harmful chemicals
A rise in pollutants from forest fires in the Pacific Northwest has begun to reverse a decade of clean air gains in the U.S., according to a new study from the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
The scientific team included researchers not only from NCAR, but also from the University of Colorado Boulder, Colorado State University, Columbia University, China’s Tsinghua University and NASA. They used satellite data to track carbon monoxide levels in the smoke as it moved eastward. Carbon monoxide is a prime indicator that a plume contains more dangerous materials, caused by incomplete combustion.
But from 2012 to 2018, the NCAR study showed, pollution levels across the northern U.S. were rising, despite the anti-pollution laws and regulations for cleaner-burning cars that had resulted in air quality improvement a decade earlier. “I wouldn’t have been able to do this study without long records,” Buchholz said, noting that two instruments on NASA’s Terra satellite, launched in 1999, helped the team track the carbon monoxide and identify the other pollutants as they moved.
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