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The Concord Consortium

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Factors that Affect Air Quality - High-Adventure Science Interactive

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How do wind, rain and solar radiation affect air quality? How might some methods of reducing emissions affect air quality? Click the play button to start the model, adjust the sliders to create different conditions and look at how each variable changes the air quality index over time.

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AirNow is your one-stop source for air quality data. Our recently redesigned site highlights air quality in your local area first, while still providing air quality information at state, national, and world views.

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Keep track of the air quality in your area!

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Real time measurement of air quality on a public map. Useful to community scientists or air quality professionals alike, PurpleAir sensors are easy to install, requiring only a power outlet and WiFi.

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Climate Justice and Air Pollution in Illinois | Youth & Climate

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Heat and Air Pollution in Los Angeles | Youth & Climate

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Heat and Air Pollution in Los Angeles | Youth & Climate

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Alliance for Climate Education

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Heat and Air Pollution in Los Angeles | Youth & Climate

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Ducksters

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Kids learn about air pollution and how it effects the environment and health. Study causes, pollutants, and facts including acid rain and smog.

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Ducksters

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Air pollution happens when solid and liquid particles-called aerosols -and certain gases end up in our air. These particles and gases can be bad for the planet and for our health, so keeping track of them is important.

Where do aerosols come from?

Any particle that gets picked up into the air or is formed from chemical reactions in the air can be an aerosol. Many aerosols enter the atmosphere when we burn fossil fuels-such as coal and petroleum-and wood. These particles can come from many sources, including car exhaust, factories and even wildfires. Some of the particles and gases come directly from these sources, but others form through chemical reactions in the air.

Aerosols can come from other places, too, such as ash from an erupting volcano. Dust, pollen from plants and mold spores are also examples of aerosols.

What else causes air pollution?

Certain gases in the atmosphere can cause air pollution. For example, in cities, a gas called ozone is a major cause of air pollution. Ozone is also a greenhouse gas that can be both good and bad for our environment. It all depends where it is in Earth's atmosphere.

Ozone high up in our atmosphere is a good thing. It helps block harmful energy from the Sun, called radiation. But, when ozone is closer to the ground, it can be really bad for our health. Ground level ozone is created when sunlight reacts with certain chemicals that come from sources of burning fossil fuels, such as factories or car exhaust.

When particles in the air combine with ozone, they create smog. Smog is a type of air pollution that looks like smoky fog and makes it difficult to see.

How does air pollution affect Earth's climate?

Aerosols can impact how the Sun's light hits Earth. For example, some aerosols reflect sunlight while others absorb sunlight. It depends on the color of the particle.

Dark surfaces-whether it's a black t-shirt or a dark particle in the atmosphere-absorb the Sun's heat. Lighter-colored surfaces reflect heat from the Sun.

A white t-shirt reflects the Sun on a hot day, making you feel cooler. In the same way, light-colored particles that reflect the Sun's light and heat away from Earth can make the global temperature cooler. Dark-colored particles that absorb the Sun's light can make the global temperature warmer.

How does air pollution affect our health?

Breathing in polluted air can be very bad for our health. Long-term exposure to air pollution has been associated with diseases of the heart and lungs, cancers and other health problems. That's why it's important for us to monitor air pollution.

How is NASA monitoring air pollution?

NASA uses satellites orbiting Earth to keep an eye on air pollution. In fact, air quality forecasters use information about aerosols from NASA's Aqua, Terra and Suomi-NPP satellites.

NASA also is developing a new instrument called the Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols, or MAIA, to fly aboard a future spacecraft mission. MAIA will help scientists understand the size, makeup and quantity of aerosols in our air. Eventually, scientists will be able to compare this information with health records. This can help us better understand the relationship between aerosol pollution and human health.

Related NASA Missions

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Air pollution is caused by solid or liquid particles and certain gases suspended in the air. These particles and gases can come from car and truck exhaust, factories, dust, pollen, mold spores, volcanoes and wildfires.

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Naomi, Improving Air Quality With Her Research

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Naomi, Improving Air Quality With Her Research

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Naomi, Improving Air Quality With Her Research - Citizen Kid by Disney

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From the time she was in sixth grade, scientist and #CitizenKid Naomi has been researching indoor air quality.

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Is smog an issue in the city where you live? What exactly is it like to live in an area prone to long time periods where citizens are exposed to smog? Read this article: Here are some of the world's worst cities for air quality. To find out the cities with the most air pollution issues, click here and here. This American Chemical Society article: In the Fog about Smog: Solving the Smog Puzzle on Earth and from Space describes how smog is being studied from space and discusses the formation of smog and what comprises it! Finally, China's toxic smog from BBC News shows actual footage and descriptions from people living in smog ridden areas. This multimedia presentation also provides interviews and first person account of how it is to live in a polluted city on a daily basis: Beijing's smog: A tale of two cities.

There are methods being designed that may help cities fighting smog to decrease the impact of this nuisance on its citizens. Visit this link to see a new air mask design from Swedish entrepreneurs. Decreasing worldwide dependence on coal can also help stop smog formation. Here is a recent article on that topic. How difficult will it be to cut coal out of the energy equation? What measures has China taken to decrease smog? This article: China Bans Cars As Air Pollution Hits Red-Alert Status may provide some ideas. National Geographic also has this recent article: China's Surprising Solutions to Clear Killer Air.

What exactly is a temperature inversion and how does it form? The science behind temperature inversions is a great resource describing how smog and other types of air pollution can become trapped due to lack of vertical mixing of atmospheric layers. Where do these inversions commonly form?

Health problems associated with smog can be both acute and chronic. This article describes issues that arise when exposed to smog on a frequent basis. Tehran smog blamed for hundreds of deaths is another article that discusses the hazards of smog exposure. With Every Breath : Health Effects Of Smog addresses California's SMOG problems and the health effects on people living in the area. Does exposure to smog affect the nervous system? Read: Smog in our brains and find out more. Visit the Center for Disease Control for more information about particulates, air pollution and exposure to high tropospheric ozone levels.

Studying historic smog events could give us great insight into how to prevent future ones. Learn more about the Smog Almost Killed New York City, Here's How! Here is a photo-essay of SMOG through the years in Los Angeles. London, England also has had some serious and deadly bouts with SMOG. One was the Great Smog of 1952. Read more about it here: Scientists finally know what caused a mysterious fog to kill 12,000 people in London in 1952.

People all over the world are looking for ways to reduce smog. This TED Talk discusses one idea.

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On July 26, 1943, Los Angeles was blanketed by a thick gas that stung people's eyes and blocked out the Sun. Panicked residents believed their city had been attacked using chemical warfare. But the cloud wasn't an act of war. It was smog. So what is this thick gray haze actually made of?

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WHO Nada Air Pollution Slides _Artboard 5

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Paul Anderson

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Crash Course

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WHO: Breathe Life - How air pollution impacts your body

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Baker School of Public Policy and Public Affairs

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NPR

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The Guardian | 2019

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Cleaning up our air - Science Weekly podcast

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An estimated 7 million people die every year from exposure to polluted air. Nicola Davis looks at the science behind air pollution and at the policies to tackle it

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GASP - Group Against Smog and Pollution

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Copyright 2022 Group Against Smog & Pollution. All Rights Reserved.

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Air pollution and climate change: all you need to know

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Air pollution and climate change: all you need to know

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People across the world are becoming increasingly aware of the public health hazard posed by polluted air. Similarly, with filthy smog and other forms of air pollution being produced through industrial, fossil-fuel burning processes, most of us have a sense that airborne pollutants can't be good for the environment either. Less obvious is the link between the world's largest single killer and the biggest environmental challenge our planet has ever faced. What, if anything, do air pollution and climate change have to do with each other?

'Air pollution' describes any substance introduced to the indoor or outdoor environment which alters the atmosphere's natural state. In this sense, greenhouse gases (GHGs) are air pollutants: gases such as methane and carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere in such unprecedented amounts that our planet's climate system is changing, to the detriment of its ecosystems and inhabitants. However, in many areas such as policy-making, greenhouse gases are usually treated as a separate issue to air pollution. Whilst GHGs have a global effect on the planet, air pollution has a more local effect on health and the surrounding environment.

However, whilst the relationship between air pollution and climate change remains only partly understood, recent research suggests they may influence each other more than previously thought.

It is predicted that air quality will decline in response to climate change. Increased heat and sunlight may facilitate higher concentrations of ozone, which forms in sunlight, and prolong its duration.

Conversely, there are numerous ways in which air pollution may aggravate climate change.

Higher concentrations of particle pollution may affect various aspects of cloud formation, in turn altering traditional rainfall patterns, with significant potential consequences.

Particulate matter can affect global warming in various ways depending on its composition. In general, light-coloured particles will reflect sunlight away from and cool the earth, whilst dark particles absorb heat, having a warming effect. Sulphates and nitrates are light particles which cool; black carbon absorbs heat. Black carbon can have a particularly negative effect when it settles on Arctic ice, which accelerates melting. In a similar way, the more Arctic ice that melts, the less white space exists to reflect sunlight and heat away from Earth - so this contributes doubly toward global warming.

How can we effectively tackle these two environmental threats in a way that is mutually beneficial?

Often, air pollution and GHG emissions come from the same sources (e.g. fossil fuel combustion), so both issues can often be combated simultaneously by reducing harmful emissions. For example, cutting emissions of black carbon and ozone is mutually beneficial to human health, air quality and climate. But this is not always the case - some measures designed to curb greenhouse gas emissions may result in worsening air quality, or vice versa. For example, burning biomass as fuel is encouraged as a 'carbon neutral' energy source; whilst it helps meet CO2 reduction targets, it also increases harmful particle emissions.

As awareness of the link between these two problems grows, it is increasingly important for policymakers to consider air pollution and climate holistically, to ensure that positive steps are taken to address these urgent problems together.

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effects of air pollution on climate change

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Air Pollution and Climate Change | IQAir

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Left Column People across the world are becoming increasingly aware of the public health hazard posed by polluted air. Similarly, with filthy smog and other forms of air pollution being produced through industrial, fossil-fuel burning processes, most of us have a sense that airborne pollutants can't be good for the environment either.

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Podcast: Air pollution, sick plants, and stress

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Hear the biggest stories from the world of science | 28 June 2018

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The New York youth activist group fighting climate change from the margins

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The New York youth activist group fighting climate change from the margins

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The New York youth activist group fighting climate change from the margins

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The New York youth activist group fighting climate change from the margins

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The New York youth activist group fighting climate change from the margins

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The New York youth activist group fighting climate change from the margins