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Study Uncovers Dirty Little Secret: Soil Emissions are Much-Bigger-than-Expected Component of Air PollutionNitrogen oxides produced by huge fires and fossil fuel combustion are a major component of air pollution. They are the primary ingredients in ground-level ozone, a pollutant harmful to human health and vegetation. But new research led by a University of Washington atmospheric scientist shows that, in some regions, nitrogen oxides emitted by the soil are much greater than expected and could play a substantially larger role in seasonal air pollution than previously believed. Nitrogen oxide emissions total more than 40 million metric tons worldwide each year, with 64 percent coming from fossil fuel combustion, 14 percent from burning and a surprising 22 percent from soil, said Lyatt Jaegle, a UW assistant professor of atmospheric sciences. The new research shows that the component from soil is about 70 percent greater than scientists expected. Instead of relying on scattered ground-based measurements of burning and combustion and then extrapolating a global total for nitrogen oxide emissions, the new work used actual observations recorded in 2000 by the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment aboard the European Space Agency's European Remote Sensing 2 satellite. Nitrogen oxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion are most closely linked to major population centers and show up in the satellite's ozone-monitoring measurements of nitrogen dioxide, part of the nitrogen oxides family.
Document ID
20050185565
Acquisition Source
Headquarters
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
Authors
Stricherz, Vince
(Washington Univ. Seattle, WA, United States)
Date Acquired
August 23, 2013
Publication Date
June 13, 2005
Publication Information
Publication: uwnews.org
Subject Category
Environment Pollution
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: NAG5-10637
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Public Use Permitted.
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