When high in the atmosphere, ozone protects Earth from harmful solar radiation — but ozone at ground level is a significant pollutant.
When high in the atmosphere, ozone protects Earth from harmful solar radiation — but ozone at ground level is a significant pollutant. Exposure to high concentrations of ground-level ozone aggravates respiratory illnesses, thus exacerbating the negative health effects of heat and contributing to the catastrophic impacts of recent heatwaves and drought in Europe.
In Europe, despite laws limiting pollution from cars, trucks and factories, there has been little improvement in ozone air quality. An international team led by atmospheric scientist Meiyun Lin found the surprising chain of causes: As global climate change leads to more hot and dry weather, the resulting droughts are stressing plants, making them less able to remove ozone from the air.
With hot and dry summers expected to become more frequent over the coming decades, this has significant implications for European policymakers, noted Lin, a research scholar in atmospheric and oceanic sciences and the Cooperative Institute for Modeling the Earth System at Princeton University.
In a new study published today in Nature Climate Change, Lin and her colleagues demonstrated that vegetation feedbacks during drought worsen the most severe ozone pollution episodes.
Read more at Princeton University
Image: Meiyun Lin is a research scholar in Princeton University's Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, the Cooperative Institute for Modeling the Earth System at Princeton University, and NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. She led an international team of climate researchers to address a longstanding puzzle: Why, despite laws successfully limiting pollution from cars, trucks and factories, has Europe seen little improvement in ozone air quality? Lin found the surprising chain of causes: As global climate change leads to more hot and dry weather, the resulting droughts are stressing plants, making them less able to remove ozone from the air. (Credit: Zhiguo Zhang)
