Spikes in air pollution in New York City have been traced to smoke from wildfires burning hundreds of kilometres away. The finding suggests city residents will face many similar pollution episodes in the coming decades.
鈥淲hen people are making predictions about climate change, they鈥檙e predicting increases in wildfires, so this sort of pollution is likely to become more common,鈥� lead author Haley Rogers of Yale University said in a statement.
Rogers and her colleagues studied two periods of unusually severe air pollution in Connecticut and New York City on 16-17 and 27-29 August 2018. Measurement stations detected high levels of three pollutants: carbon monoxide, tiny particles called PM2.5 and black carbon 鈥� otherwise known as soot.
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The researchers studied satellite images to gauge how far the clouds of pollution spread. They then used a weather model to simulate wind patterns at the time and estimate where the pollution came from.
The first cloud of pollution arrived from western Canada, where wildfires were burning several days earlier. The second came from south-eastern US, where there had also been wildfires.
Smog on the wind
鈥淭here are other studies on the long-distance transport of forest fires, but not to New York City,鈥� says Drew Gentner, who leads the Yale University team that studies air quality. Air pollution from wildfires 鈥渋s not a typical problem one would think about for New York City and the region鈥�, he says.
Air pollution can cause health problems including long-term lung damage. However, it isn鈥檛 yet possible to estimate the public health impact of the pollution that drifted to New York City, says Gentner. 鈥淭he resulting health impacts from a given quantity of particulate matter exposure is a very active area of research,鈥� he says. Similarly, it is unclear what constitutes a minimum safe level of exposure for health.
Climate change is worsening wildfires by causing longer periods of hot weather, low humidity and strong winds. The recent Australian wildfires were probably exacerbated by climate change. Wildfires also contribute to climate change by releasing carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas.
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
