article thumbnail

Severe drought influences ozone pollution

Green Car Congress

Drought conditions can have complicated effects on ozone air quality, so to better understand the process, researchers have analyzed data from two ozone-polluted cities before, during and after the California drought. However, plants also decrease air ozone levels by taking the gas up through pores in their leaves.

Ozone 207
article thumbnail

Toyota develops tropospheric ozone-concentration simulator for South and East Asia

Green Car Congress

Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) and Toyota Central R&D Labs., have developed a simulator able to predict tropospheric ozone concentrations across the whole of South and East Asia. Tropospheric ozone is the main cause of photochemical smog, an atmospheric pollutant harmful to human health and plant growth.

Ozone 199
article thumbnail

US EPA proposes San Joaquin Valley, South Coast, Southeast Desert as failing to meet one hour ozone air standard

Green Car Congress

The US Environmental Protection Agency announced that it is proposing to find that the San Joaquin Valley, and California’s South Coast and the Southeast Desert have failed to meet the 1-hour ozone standard by their required deadlines. Children and the elderly are most impacted by ozone pollution. NO x and VOCs are ozone precursors.

Ozone 186
article thumbnail

Yale study finds asphalt a significant source of air pollution, especially on hot, sunny days

Green Car Congress

Yale researchers found that common road and roofing asphalts produced complex mixtures of organic compounds, including hazardous pollutants, in a range of typical temperature and solar conditions. A) Different stages in asphalt’s life cycle with potential to emit reactive organic gases into the atmosphere.

Pollution 337
article thumbnail

EPA proposes approval of new ozone plans for the two of the worst Air Quality Zones in US: California’s San Joaquin Valley and South Coast

Green Car Congress

US EPA Region 9 8-hour ozone trends, 1979-2000. These State Implementation Plans (SIPs) are the roadmaps to meeting the 1997 8-hour ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) of 0.08 In 1997, EPA first established the 8-hour ozone standard, which replaced the older 1-hour ozone standard (0.12 Source: EPA.

Ozone 236
article thumbnail

Airborne measurements show ozone-forming VOCs emissions from ethanol plant higher than government estimates

Green Car Congress

The measurements also show emissions of all volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which include ethanol, were five times higher than government numbers, which estimate emissions based on manufacturing information. VOCs and nitrogen oxides react with sunlight to form ground-level ozone, the main component of smog.

Ozone 150
article thumbnail

HEI study in Europe finds evidence of health effects at lower levels of air pollution

Green Car Congress

In the report, the investigators describe the development of new exposure models for all of Europe for four pollutants: fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ), black carbon (BC), nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ), and ozone (O 3 ), as well as PM 2.5 particle composition. Brunekreef B, Strak M, Chen J, Andersen ZJ, Atkinson R, Bauwelinck M, et al.

Pollution 313