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Ozone Pollution: An Insidious and Growing Threat to Biodiversity

Yale E360

Ground-level ozone has long been known to pose a threat to human health. Now, scientists are increasingly understanding how this pollutant damages plants and trees, setting off a cascade of impacts that harms everything from soil microbes, to insects, to wildlife. Read more on E360 ?.

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Oil Refineries: A Deadly Industry

Union of Concerned Scientists

One good example of the nexus between global warming and local pollution is ground-level ozone. NOx and SOx move to higher levels of the atmosphere and react with oxygen and water vapor to produce acid rain, which harms crops, forests and ecosystems by decreasing growth and damaging foliage. Secondary PM2.5

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Air pollution can make insects mate with the wrong species

New Scientist

Ground-level ozone, a product of pollution from cars, degrades insect pheromones, and this can result in mismatched mating and sterile offspring

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Should New Gas Stoves Be Banned?

Union of Concerned Scientists

Like nitrogen dioxide, methane combines with other pollutants to form ground-level ozone—more commonly known as smog—and it is a significantly more potent global warming pollutant than carbon dioxide. A 2022 Sierra Club investigation , for example, found nearly 400 methane leaks in Washington, D.C., in just one day.

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Ozone pollution causes $63 billion damage per year to East Asian crops

New Scientist

Rising levels of ground-level ozone in China and nearby countries are having a big effect on the yields of staple crops such as wheat, rice and maize

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What Exactly is Ozone? The Good, the Bad & the Ugly

Breezometer

Our ozone layer serves as a lifesaving UV barrier for planet earth, functioning to absorb most of the sun’s ultraviolet radiation. At the same time, ground-level ozone pollution is extremely harmful to human health. Good Ozone’: Our Essential Sun Shield. Bad Ozone’: Ground-level Ozone & Impact on Health.

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Summer Air Pollution Trends: Factors Affecting Air Quality

Breezometer

Levels of Ground-level Ozone Pollution Can Increase in Summer. As ground-level ozone requires the presence of sunlight to form, high heat and sunny weather can function to increase concentrations of this particular pollutant. , releasing choking black smog across Russia’s North-Eastern region.