Unhealthy ozone days could increase by more than a week in coming decades

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-04/agu-uod042116.php

Public Release: 21-Apr-2016
Unhealthy ozone days could increase by more than a week in coming decades
American Geophysical Union

If emission rates continue unchecked, regions of the United States could experience between three and nine additional days per year of unhealthy ozone levels by 2050, according to a new study.

"In the coming decades, global climate change will likely cause more heat waves during the summer, which in turn could cause a 70 to 100 percent increase in ozone episodes, depending on the region," said Lu Shen, a graduate student at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) in Cambridge, Massachusetts and lead author of the new study.

California, the Southwest, and the Northeast would be the most affected, each possibly experiencing up to nine additional days of dangerous ozone levels, with much of the rest of the country experiencing an average increase of 2.3 days, according to the new study published today in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

This increase could lead to more respiratory illness with especially dangerous consequences for children, seniors, and people suffering from asthma.

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