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Global Warming Could Worsen U.S. Pollution: Report
Sat Feb 19, 2005 03:57 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Global warming could stifle cleansing summer winds across parts of the northern United States over the next 50 years and worsen air pollution, U.S. researchers said on Saturday.
Further warming of the atmosphere, as is happening now, would block cold fronts bringing cooler, cleaner air from Canada and allow stagnant air and ozone pollution to build up over cities in the Northeast and Midwest, they predicted.
"The air just cooks," said Loretta Mickley of Harvard University's Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences. "The pollution accumulates, accumulates, accumulates, until a cold front comes in and the winds sweep it away."
Mickley and colleagues used a computer model, an approach commonly used by climate scientists to predict weather and climate changes.
She told a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science that the model predicted a 20-percent decline in summer cold fronts out of Canada.
"If this model is correct, global warming would cause an increase in difficult days for those affected by ozone pollution, such as people suffering with respiratory illnesses like asthma and those doing physical labor or exercising outdoors," she said.
