To... Web References for GSS Ozone

1. Strange Happenings

EPA Ozone Info

24 December 1997. Ozone Depletion FAQ
Sample Question--Subject: 1.3) How does the composition of the atmosphere change with altitude? (Or, how can CFC's get up to the stratosphere when they are heavier than air?) Answer: In the earth's troposphere and stratosphere, most _stable_ chemical species are "well-mixed" - their mixing ratios are independent of altitude. If a species' mixing ratio changes with altitude, some kind of physical or chemical transformation is taking place. That last statement may seem surprising - one might expect the heavier molecules to dominate at lower altitudes. The mixing ratio of Krypton (mass 84), then, would decrease with altitude, while that of Helium (mass 4) would increase. In reality, however, molecules do not segregate by weight in the troposphere or stratosphere. The relative proportions of Helium, Nitrogen, and Krypton are unchanged up to about 100 km. Why is this? Vertical transport in the troposphere takes place by convection and turbulent mixing....

2. Ozone in Nature

15 December 2004. NASA RELEASE: 04-397. NASA Scientists Discuss Giant Atmospheric Brown Cloud. NASA scientists announced a giant, smoggy atmospheric brown cloud, which forms over South Asia and the Indian Ocean, has intercontinental reach. The scientists presented their findings today during the American Geophysical Union Fall meeting in San Francisco. The scientists discussed the massive cloud's sources, global movement and its implications. The brown cloud is a moving, persistent air mass characterized by a mixed-particle haze. It also contains other pollution, such as ozone. "Ozone is a triple-threat player in the global environment. There are three very different ways ozone affects our lives," said Robert Chatfield, a scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. "A protective layer of good ozone, high in the atmosphere, shields us from deadly ultraviolet light that comes from the sun. Second, bad or smog ozone near the surface of Earth can burn our lungs and damage crops. In our study, we are looking at a third major effect of ozone, that it can warm the planet, because it is a powerful greenhouse gas," Chatfield said. "We found both brown cloud pollution and natural processes can contribute to unhealthy levels of ozone in the troposphere where we live and breathe. Some ozone from the brown cloud rises to high enough altitudes to spread over the global atmosphere," Chatfield explained. Ozone from the Earth's protective stratospheric layer, produced by natural processes, can migrate down to contribute to concentrations in the lower atmosphere, according to the scientists.

3 December 2003. NASA RELEASE: 03-394. The Measure Of Water: NASA Creates New Map For The Atmosphere. ...Scientists have created the first detailed map of water, containing heavy hydrogen and heavy oxygen atoms, in and out of clouds, from the surface to some 25 miles above the Earth, to better understand the dynamics of how water gets into the stratosphere. Only small amounts of water reach the arid stratosphere, 10 to 50 kilometers (6 to 25 miles) above Earth, so any increase in the water content could potentially lead to destruction of some ozone-shielding capability in this part of the atmosphere. This could produce larger ozone depletions over the North and South Poles as well as at mid-latitudes. ...[water] in the lower atmosphere, the troposphere, controls how much sunlight gets through to the planet, how much is trapped in our skies, and how much goes back out to space.

January 2001. Ozone. (FS-2001-1-014-GSFC) [191KB PDF] Ozone (O3) is a relatively unstable molecule made up of three atoms of oxygen (O). Although it represents only a tiny fraction of the atmosphere, ozone is crucial for life on Earth.

3. The Danger of UV to Living Things

2009 October 19. Color of Fabric Matters When Protecting Skin From Ultraviolet Rays. By By HENRY FOUNTAIN, The NY Times. Excerpt: It takes more than sunscreen to keep the sun’s ultraviolet rays from harming your skin. The type of clothing you wear can offer protection, too — or not. Studies have shown that some lightweight fabrics do not provide enough UV protection.
But it is not just the type of fiber and the weave of the fabric that matters, but also the color. Ascención Riva of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia and colleagues have addressed the color issue, studying the effects of different dyes on the UV protection provided by lightweight woven cottons.
...They found that red and blue shades performed better than yellow, particularly in blocking UV-B rays, which are the most harmful. Protection increased as the shades were made darker and more intense. And if the initial protection level of the fabric was higher, the darker shades offered even greater improvement....

2001 August 12. NEWSWEEK COVER: JOHN MCCAIN: MY BATTLE WITH SKIN CANCER In the August 20 issue of Newsweek, Arizona Sen. John McCain and his wife Cindy talk about his battle against skin cancer. An accompanying report looks at the increase in skin cancer, new treatments being tested and a tribute to Maureen Reagan who died from melanoma.

Dermatlas is an international collaborative project that enables health care professionals, parents, and patients to access high quality dermatology images on the World Wide Web. The Dermatlas also includes an online Dermatology Quiz that allows trainees to test their diagnostic skills.

4. CFCs are Invented

9 Febuary 2004. NASA RELEASE: 04-057. SCIENTISTS FIND OZONE-DESTROYING MOLECULE. Using measurements from a NASA aircraft flying over the Arctic, Harvard University scientists have made the first observations of a molecule that researchers have long theorized plays a key role in destroying stratospheric ozone, chlorine peroxide. Thomas Midgley

• CFCs: THEIR ALTERNATIVES AND EFFECTS ON THE OZONE -- reversing the process of ozone depletion by means of electron photodetachment.

5. A Mystery Solved

4 March 2002. FUTURE VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS MAY CAUSE OZONE HOLE OVER ARCTIC -- An "ozone hole" could form over the North Pole after future major volcanic eruptions, according to the cover story by a NASA scientist in tomorrow's edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

28 May 2002. A WARM POLAR WINTER WAS EASIER ON ARCTIC OZONE -- A NASA researcher has found unusually high levels of protective upper atmospheric ozone in the Arctic as a result of a rare sudden warming during the early winter of 1998.

6. The Loss of '84 and the Suprise of '85

23 September 2003. RELEASE: 03-306. 2003 Ozone 'Hole' Approaches, But Falls Short Of Record. This year's Antarctic ozone hole is the second largest ever observed, according to scientists from NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the Naval Research Laboratory.

17 April 2001. WET UPPER ATMOSPHERE MAY SLOW OZONE RECOVERY. Increasing water vapor in the stratosphere, which results partially from greenhouse gases, may delay ozone recovery and increase the rate of climate change. The new study by NASA scientists in Geophysical Research Letters is the first to link greenhouse gases to increased ozone depletion over populated areas.

7. Expedition to Antarctica

8 November 2004. Analyzing the Antarctic Ozone Hole. Part of Earth Exploration Toolbook from TERC. Users examine satellite images that show how much ozone is in the atmosphere over the Southern Hemisphere. They interpret the images to identify the ozone "hole" that develops over this region every year during the Southern Hemisphere's spring, and compare its size from year to year. Using freely available image analysis software, ImageJ, users quantify the area of the Antarctic ozone hole each October from 1996 to 2004. Finally, they bring their measurements into a spreadsheet program and create a graph to document changes in the size of the ozone hole.

30 October 2002. NASA RELEASE: 02-211 -- NASA JOINS INTERNATIONAL OZONE STUDY IN ARCTIC -- NASA researchers will join more than 350 scientists from the United States, the European Union, Canada, Iceland, Japan, Norway, Poland, Russia and Switzerland this winter to measure ozone and other atmospheric gases using aircraft, large and small balloons, ground-based instruments and satellites. // This second SAGE III Ozone Loss and Validation Experiment (SOLVE II) campaign will be conducted in close collaboration with the European Commission, sponsored by the VINTERSOL (Validation of International Satellites and Study of Ozone Loss) campaign. (SAGE III stands for the third Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment.) SOLVE will take place in Kiruna, Sweden, the site of the first international effort during the winter of 1999-2000. See: here, here, and there

8. Measuring Ozone

Archives of Past Articles for Chapter 8

2009 September 21. Ozone layer depletion levelling off. ESA News. Excerpt: By merging more than a decade of atmospheric data from European satellites, scientists have compiled a homogeneous long-term ozone record that allows them to monitor total ozone trends on a global scale – and the findings look promising. 
Scientists merged monthly total ozone data derived from the vertically downward-looking measurements of the GOME instrument on ESA’s ERS-2 satellite, SCIAMACHY on ESA’s Envisat and GOME-2 on the European Meteorological Satellite Organization’s MetOp-A.
"We found a global slightly positive trend of ozone increase of almost 1% per decade in the total ozone from the last 14 years: a result that was confirmed by comparisons with ground-based measurements," said Diego G. Loyola R. who worked on the project with colleagues from the German Aerospace Center (DLR).
...Having access to these atmospheric satellite data over long periods is important for scientists to identify and analyse long-term trends and changes. In addition to monitoring ozone trends, scientists will continue to monitor ozone-depleting substances that were phased out under the Montreal Protocol but continue to linger in the atmosphere....

2007 September 13. NASA KEEPS EYE ON OZONE LAYER AMID MONTREAL PROTOCOL'S SUCCESS. Excerpt: "The Montreal Protocol has been a resounding success," said Richard Stolarski, a speaker at the symposium from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "The effect can be seen in the leveling off of chlorine compounds in the atmosphere and the beginning of their decline."
... "The goal now is to ensure that CFCs and other emissions continue to fall to below the levels that produce an ozone hole," said Goddard's Anne Douglass, the deputy project scientist for Aura. "This won't happen until about 2070."
NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists announced in 2006 that the hole was the largest ever observed, at 10.6 million square miles. The size of the hole will approach its annual peak in late September. Scientists at the symposium will discuss 20 years of scientific progress, as well as how best to monitor the atmosphere to ensure the goals of the treaty are realized.

2007 June 27. NASA RELEASE: 07-144. NASA AIRBORNE EXPEDITION CHASES CLIMATE, OZONE QUESTIONS. WASHINGTON -- NASA's Tropical Composition, Cloud and Climate Coupling (TC4) field campaign will begin this summer in San Jose, Costa Rica, with an investigation into how chemical compounds in the air are transported vertically into the stratosphere and how that transport affects cloud formation and climate.
The study will begin the week of July 16 with coordinated observations from [7] satellites, [3] high-flying NASA research aircraft, balloons and ground-based radar. The targets of these measurements are the gases, aerosols and ice crystals that flow from the top of the strong storm systems that form over the warm tropical ocean. These storm systems pump air more than 40,000 feet above Earth's surface, where it can influence the composition of the stratosphere, home of our planet's protective ozone layer. ...The effort runs through Aug. 8. It is NASA's largest Earth science field campaign of the year. "A mission this complex, with three aircraft, deployment sites in Costa Rica and Panama, and more than 400 people involved, can be a real challenge," said Mission Project Manager Marilyn Vasques of NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif....
Along the coasts of Colombia and Panama south of Costa Rica, the warm summer waters of the Pacific Ocean are a fertile breeding ground for the type of heat-driven, or convective, storm systems the mission is targeting. ...Mission scientists want to know what effect a warming climate with rising ocean temperatures will have on the intensity of these storm systems. ...These tropical convective systems also may play a role in the recovery of the ozone layer. ...Mission scientists will investigate whether the rapid movement of air in these strong convective systems provides an express route for ozone-destroying compounds to reach the stratosphere. ...For more information about NASA's TC4 mission, visit: http://www.espo.nasa.gov/tc4

2007 January 29. Analyzing the Antarctic Ozone Hole. NASA. The Antarctic ozone hole is bigger than ever. This troubling news was reported in October by scientists from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "Analyzing the Antarctic Ozone Hole," a chapter of the Web-based Earth Exploration Toolbook, provides guidance and the tools necessary for middle and high school students to perform their own studies of the ozone hole using data collected by a NASA satellite instrument, the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer. ...Using image analysis software available online, students quantify each year's ozone hole by measuring the number of pixels covered by colors representing ozone levels below a certain threshold value. Students then import their measurements into a spreadsheet program where they graph annual changes in the size of the ozone hole. Students are encouraged to consider what might account for the year-to-year changes, to outline a plan for finding out what could have caused one year to be different than others, and to develop a strategy for conducting a similar study of the Northern Hemisphere's Arctic region....

2006 December 14. NASA TROPICAL OZONE STUDIES YIELD SURPRISES. NASA Earth Observatory News. - Two new NASA-funded studies of ozone in the tropics using NASA satellite data are giving scientists a fuller understanding of the processes driving ozone chemistry and its impacts on pollution and climate change.

2006 October 19. NASA AND NOAA ANNOUNCE ANTARCTIC OZONE HOLE IS A RECORD BREAKER (RELEASE: 06-338). NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists report this year's ozone hole in the polar region of the Southern Hemisphere has broken records for area and depth. ..."From September 21 to 30, the average area of the ozone hole was the largest ever observed, at 10.6 million square miles," said Paul Newman, atmospheric scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. If the stratospheric weather conditions had been normal, the ozone hole would be expected to reach a size of about 8.9 to 9.3 million square miles, about the surface area of North America. The Ozone Monitoring Instrument on NASA's Aura satellite measures the total amount of ozone from the ground to the upper atmosphere over the entire Antarctic continent. ...Scientists from NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo., use balloon-borne instruments to measure ozone directly over the South Pole. ...nearly all of the ozone in the layer between eight and 13 miles above the Earth's surface had been destroyed. In this critical layer, the instrument measured a record low of only 1.2 DU., having rapidly plunged from an average non-hole reading of 125 DU in July and August. "These numbers mean the ozone is virtually gone in this layer of the atmosphere," said David Hofmann, director of the Global Monitoring Division at the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory. ..."We now have the largest ozone hole on record," said Craig Long of NCEP. As the sun rises higher in the sky during October and November, this unusually large and persistent area may allow much more ultraviolet light than usual to reach Earth's surface in the southern latitudes.

2006 January 23. NASA to Fly into Tropical "Portal" to the Stratosphere. NASA scientists are leading an airborne field experiment to a warm tropical locale to take a close look at a largely unexplored region of the chilly upper atmosphere.

Archives of Past Articles for Chapter 8

9. Global Efforts to Recover Ozone

Archive of Past Articles for Chapter 9

2010 Jan 25. The Ozone Hole Is Mending. Now for the ‘But.’ By Sindya N. Bhanoo, The NY Times. Excerpt: That the hole in Earth’s ozone layer is slowly mending is considered a big victory for environmental policy makers. But in a new report, scientists say there is a downside: its repair may contribute to global warming.
It turns out that the hole led to the formation of moist, brighter-than-usual clouds that shielded the Antarctic region from the warming induced by greenhouse gas emissions over the last two decades, scientists write in Wednesday’s issue of Geophysical Research Letters....

2009 June 22. Ozone Solution Poses a Growing Climate Threat. By Andrew C. Revkin, The NY Times. Excerpt: A group of chemicals called  hydrofluorocarbons, long hailed as a substitute for gases that can destroy the ozone layer, are now seen as a growing greenhouse threat given their outsize ability to warm the atmosphere.
The chemicals, mainly referred to by the acronym  HFC’s, have long been known to be potent heat-trapping substances. But because they are released in tiny traces, they currently contribute less than 1 percent of the climate-warming effect from human-generated carbon dioxide.
But fast-paced growth in the use of these chemicals as refrigerants and in air conditioning in developing countries is poised to make HFC’s a far bigger contributor to warming, scientists are saying. A sobering new analysis of HFC emission trends, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, forecasts that by midcentury, emissions of these chemicals could be heating the atmosphere with the same punch as 7 or 8 billion tons a year of carbon dioxide....
The rising importance of HFC’s has some climate campaigners, and countries, calling for a new use for an old treaty, the Montreal Protocol regulating substances harming the ozone layer. Because the gas is so similar to chemicals already being phased out under that treaty, it would not be hard to get countries to consider limiting its emissions under that pact....

2009 March 18. New Simulation Shows Consequences of a World Without Earth's Natural Sunscreen. By Michael Carlowicz, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Excerpt: The year is 2065. Nearly two-thirds of Earth's ozone is gone -- not just over the poles, but everywhere. The infamous ozone hole over Antarctica, first discovered in the 1980s, is a year-round fixture, with a twin over the North Pole. The ultraviolet (UV) radiation falling on mid-latitude cities like Washington, D.C., is strong enough to cause sunburn in just five minutes. DNA-mutating UV radiation is up 650 percent, with likely harmful effects on plants, animals and human skin cancer rates.
Such is the world we would have inherited if 193 nations had not agreed to ban ozone-depleting substances, according to atmospheric chemists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, Bilthoven.
Led by Goddard scientist Paul Newman, the team simulated "what might have been" if chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and similar chemicals were not banned through the treaty known as the Montreal Protocol....
...In the new analysis, Newman and colleagues "set out to predict ozone losses as if nothing had been done to stop them."...
...By the simulated year 2020, 17 percent of all ozone is depleted globally, as assessed by a drop in Dobson Units (DU), the unit of measurement used to quantify a given concentration of ozone. An ozone hole starts to form each year over the Arctic, which was once a place of prodigious ozone levels.
By 2040, global ozone concentrations fall below 220 DU, the same levels that currently comprise the "hole" over Antarctica. (In 1974, globally averaged ozone was 315 DU.) The UV index in mid-latitude cities reaches 15 around noon on a clear summer day (a UV index of 10 is considered extreme today.), giving a perceptible sunburn in about 10 minutes. Over Antarctica, the ozone hole becomes a year-round fixture.
..."We simulated a world avoided," said Newman, "and it's a world we should be glad we avoided."...

2008 June 13. Mending Ozone Hole May Benefit Climate Change. By David Biello, Scientific American. Excerpt: Decades of chemical pollution have damaged the ozone layer of the upper atmosphere that shields Earth from the harmful effects of the sun's ultraviolet rays, each summer eating a hole over the South Pole that expands to nearly the size of Antarctica. But since 1996, when an international treaty banned the culprit chemical refrigerants and propellants (known as CFCs, or chlorofluorocarbons), the size of the seasonal tear has been shrinking—and scientists predict it may stop forming by the end of this century.
That is not just good news for the ozone hole, it is also good news for the climate. Atmospheric scientists note in a new study published in Science that sewing up the rift in the ozone (a type of oxygen) layer may help heal another environmental woe: climate change.
The reason: closing the gash may affect the flow of winds known as the westerlies around Antarctica, which impact everything from the extent of sea ice to the location of deserts in the Southern Hemisphere.
"The winds drive everything," says study author Lorenzo Polvani, an atmospheric scientist at Columbia University, "locations of storms, dry zones and deserts, the ice and the ocean circulation as well as the carbon uptake of the oceans." For decades, these winds have been speeding up near Antarctica; repairing the ozone would weaken the winds, he says, and shift them back toward the equator, affecting weather in the entire Southern Hemisphere, including Antarctica as well as Australia, parts of Africa and South America.
This also means Earth's southernmost continent might experience warming in future as the winds continue to shift and allow relatively warmer air to cover it, potentially speeding the melting of ice shelves. In addition, if there were no hole, the replenished ozone would trap even more heat as greenhouse gas concentrations also rise, according to Polvani.

2008 Apr 24. Stratospheric Injections to Counter Global Warming Could Damage Ozone Layer. NCAR Press Release. Excerpt: BOULDER--A much-discussed idea to offset global warming by injecting sulfate particles into the stratosphere would have a drastic impact on Earth's protective ozone layer, new research concludes. The study, led by Simone Tilmes of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), warns that such an approach might delay the recovery of the Antarctic ozone hole by decades and cause significant ozone loss over the Arctic.
...In recent years, climate scientists have studied "geoengineering" proposals to cool the planet and mitigate the most severe impacts of global warming. Such plans could be in addition to efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. One of the most-discussed ideas, analyzed by Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen and other researchers, would be to regularly inject large amounts of Sun-blocking sulfate particles into the stratosphere. The goal would be to cool Earth's surface, much as sulfur particles from major volcanic eruptions in the past have resulted in reduced surface temperatures.
..."Our research indicates that trying to artificially cool off the planet could have perilous side effects," Tilmes says. "While climate change is a major threat, more research is required before society attempts global geoengineering solutions."
...Since major volcanic eruptions temporarily thin the ozone layer in the stratosphere, Tilmes and her colleagues looked into the potential impact of geoengineering plans on ozone over the poles. Sulfates from volcanoes provide a surface on which chlorine gases in the cold polar lower stratosphere can become activated and cause chemical reactions that intensify the destruction of ozone molecules, although the sulfates themselves do not directly destroy ozone.
The new study concluded that, over the next few decades, hypothetical artificial injections of sulfates likely would destroy between about one-fourth to three-fourths of the ozone layer above the Arctic.
Title: The sensitivity of polar ozone depletion to proposed geo-engineering schemes Authors: Simone Tilmes, Rolf Mueller, and Ross Salawitch Publication: Science Express, April 24, 2008

7 December 2005. Scientists Say Recovery of the Ozone Layer May Take Longer Than Expected. By KENNETH CHANG, NY Times. SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 6 - The layer of ozone in the earth's upper atmosphere, which protects life from harmful ultraviolet radiation but which has been damaged by artificial chemicals, may take a decade or two longer to recover than previously thought, scientists reported Tuesday. Until now, the ozone layer had been expected to return to its 1980 condition by about 2050. But at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union here, the scientists said new measurements and computer simulations suggested that continuing use of the chemicals - chlorofluorocarbons, or CFC's - would delay the recovery until about 2065. Despite a ban on producing the chemicals in industrialized countries and the ready availability of substitute chemicals, the United States and Canada still account for about 15 percent of current emissions, because CFC's are still in use in older refrigerators and air-conditioners....

28 September 2005. The Role of Science in Environmental Policy Making. Testimony of The Honorable Richard E. Benedick, Ambassador, ret. to the United States Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works. "The Case of the Montreal Protocol: Science Serving Public Policy" This testimony pertains to efforts to solve the ozone hole problem, but has lesson for other policy issues, such as actions regarding climate change or loss of biodiversity.

Archive of Past Articles for Chapter 9

10. The Other Face of Ozone

Archive of Past Articles for Chapter 10

2009 Feb 13. USA Today special report on air pollution near schools. USA today used an EPA model to track the path of industrial pollution and mapped the locations of almost 128,000 schools to determine the levels of toxic chemicals outside....
Interactive Map: Schools that ranked the worst.

2009 January 16. Sniffing Out Smog. By Kathleen M. Wong, ScienceMatters@Berkeley, Volume 6, Issue 40. Excerpt: If smog were a kitchen creation, the recipe would go something like this: Start with a miasma of organic hydrocarbons from spilled gasoline, incomplete combustion and trees. Add nitrogen oxides from combustion in factory furnaces and vehicle engines. Zap with a dose of sunlight, and wait. The result: a heaping serving of photochemical smog.
...Atmospheric chemist Ron Cohen studies how these pollutants form, tracks where and how far they travel, and how they get removed from the atmosphere. He then uses this knowledge to understand air quality and the interactions of pollutants with climate. A Berkeley professor of chemistry and earth and planetary sciences, his work provides the factual underpinnings for climate and air pollution models that, ultimately, help keep us all breathing more easily.
...Cohen tracks air pollution from its molecular origins through its metamorphosis into ugly yellow smog. To do this, he designs and builds instruments capable of measuring minute amounts of the chemicals that contribute to air pollution. Armed with these super sniffers, he can track exactly how fast smog forms and how much of it is in the environment.
"We try to understand how these molecules get into the atmosphere, what their chemistry is, and what they're doing to climate," Cohen says....

Archive of Past Articles for Chapter 10

11. Hazards of Ozone in the Troposphere

Archive of Past Articles for Chapter 11

2010 March 2. Study points to high cost of polluted air. By Peter Fimrite, SF Chronicle. Excerpt: Foul, filthy air is wafting over California and making people sick to the tune of almost $200 million a year in hospital expenses, according to a Rand Corp. study released today.
The pollution is jacking up health care costs, insurance premiums and jeopardizing the health of children, who suffer more from asthma attacks in smoggy areas, said researchers with the Santa Monica nonprofit policy research institute.
"It shows that the major stakeholders in the California health care system are paying millions and millions of dollars due to the failure to meet federal clean air standards," said John Romley, lead author of the study and an economist at Rand. "Folks in the Bay Area are paying for medical care in their taxes for hospital care for people around the state."
The study, "The Impact of Air Quality on Hospital Spending," documented 29,808 emergency room visits and hospital admissions in the state for problems related to air pollution from 2005 through 2007.
The medical care provided during those visits, which involved everything from asthma to pneumonia, cost $193 million, about two-thirds of which was paid for by Medicare and Medi-Cal, according to the report.
Previous studies have documented California's failure to meet federal clean air standards, especially in the Los Angeles basin and the San Joaquin Valley. This study, Romley said, is the first to quantify the medical cost and show how California's dirty air is driving up the price of both government and private insurance....

2010 February 2. Industry, Enviro Groups Try to Sway EPA on Smog Standard. By Robin Bravender, The NY Times. Excerpt: ARLINGTON, Va. -- Industry and environmental groups sparred at a public hearing here today over U.S. EPA's planned reconsideration of the George W. Bush administration's 2008 smog standard.
Roger McClellan, who chaired the panel of EPA science advisers during George H.W. Bush's presidency, urged agency Administrator Lisa Jackson to drop the smog proposal "since the premise on which it was advanced is flawed." The American Petroleum Institute paid McClellan to testify.
Environmental and public health advocates, meanwhile, warned EPA that failing to follow through on tightening smog limits would have devastating effects on public health and ecosystems.
At issue is EPA's proposed strengthening of the health-based "primary" standard for ozone within a range of 60 to 70 parts per billion (ppb) when averaged over an eight-hour period. The George W. Bush administration had tightened the limit from 84 ppb to 75 ppb in 2008, even though its Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) had recommended a 60 ppb to 70 ppb standard....
"Using the best science to strengthen these standards is a long overdue action that will help millions of Americans breathe easier and live healthier," Jackson said as EPA released the draft rule last month....

2009 April 12. City air pollution 'shortens life'. By Humphrey Hawksley, BBC News. Excerpt: It has taken a quarter of a century, but US researchers say their work has finally enabled them to determine to what extent city air pollution impacts on average life expectancy.
The project tracked the change of air quality in 51 American cities since the 1980s.
During that time general life expectancy increased by more than two and half years, much due to improved lifestyles, diet and healthcare.
But the researchers calculated more than 15% of that extra time was due to cleaner air.
"We think about five months of that is due to the improvement of air quality," said Dr Douglas Dockery, head of the Environmental Health Department at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, which undertook the research.
He added that, due to the relatively clean air in the US, the impact was far larger than anticipated.
...Dr Dockery believes that if his research was transposed onto the heavily polluted cities of the developing world, such as Beijing or Mexico City, the life expectancy impact would be far greater.
"We would be talking about several years," he said....
"We looked at fine particles that penetrate deep in the lungs, those that are not caught in the nose and the mouth, and directly damage the blood vessels. Most of those come from combustion, from automobiles, diesel trucks and buses and power plants."...

2009 March 16. Ozone Linked to Deadly Lung Disease. By Emily Sohn, Discovery News. Excerpt: On days when ozone levels are high, breathing can be difficult and exercising outdoors is usually discouraged. Now research shows that breathing in the gas year in and year out can lead to chronic and deadly lung disease.
A study of nearly half a million people found that the risk of dying from lung disease went up by as much as 50 percent in cities with the highest levels of ozone. Repeated daily exposures to even moderate levels of ozone proved far worse than occasional exposure to high levels.
It is the first study to look at the effects on the lungs of breathing in ozone, day after day, year after year. And it suggests that current regulations may be missing the mark.
"The standard we have in the United States protects you against peaks," said George Thurston, an environmental health scientist at New York University. "It doesn't do anything to protect you against cumulative long-term exposure."
...Fewer than 10 percent of the population dies from lung disease each year. But the effects of ozone are significant enough to cause concern, said Douglas Dockery, an environmental epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.
"This has very significant implications in terms of policy-setting," Dockery said. "The standard is really based on what the maximum is for a given day, but this suggests that there might be a need for average annual limits."...

2006 February 28. Standards: Even Approved Amount of Ozone Is Found Harmful. By NICHOLAS BAKALAR, NY Times. A study sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that air even at the E.P.A.'s current acceptable level of ozone - 80 parts per billion - can bring on a significantly increased risk of premature death. ...Ozone, the major component of smog, ... can cause lung damage when inhaled. By applying statistical models to air pollution, weather and mortality for 98 American cities over a 14-year period, the researchers determined that an increase of 10 parts per billion in ozone concentrations measured day to day causes a 0.3 percent increase in early mortality. ...The study ... is now online at the journal's website. Michelle L. Bell, the lead author on the study, said that in a city the size of New York a 0.3 percent increase in mortality was equivalent to an additional 2,000 deaths a year....

Archive of Past Articles for Chapter 11

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