Reducing Fossil Fuel Particulate Pollution Can Make the Climate Warmer

AUSTIN, Texas - Sept. 19, 2024 - PRLog -- We've Come a Long Way in Reducing Particulate (Soot) Air Pollution

The term "smog" – derived from a combination of "smoke" and "fog" – first appeared in the early 20th century to describe conditions in London.

London, long famous for its "pea-soup" Thames River valley fog, found conditions deteriorated even further during days-long smog events, made worse by the proliferation of coal-burning fireplaces and gigantic coal-fired power plants producing electricity to run the metropolitan area.

The problem became even worse in the postwar period due to the increased use of low-quality, highly sulfureous coal.

Smog reached a new dangerous peak in the first week of December 1952 as an air inversion formed over the city, trapping as much as 1,000 tons of smoke particles, 2,000 tons of carbon dioxide, and 370 tons of sulfur dioxide (which combined to form 800 tons of sulfuric acid).

According to the UK Met Office, this "Great Smog of London" caused widespread breathing problems, and estimates indicate that 4,000 people (and possibly as many as 12,000) died prematurely due to complications from air pollution events during the London winter of 1952 – 1953.

The worldwide publicity generated by the Great Smog of London set the stage for new regulations to tackle the problem of air pollution that affected cities, particularly those that commonly experience air inversions that trap pollution close to the ground, including Los Angeles, Delhi, Beijing, Mexico City, and Tehran.

New clean air regulations were enacted in the London region in 1954, 1956, and 1968.

Los Angeles had its own significant "smog event" in the summer of 1943 that reduced visibility to just a couple of city blocks. In reaction, the Los Angeles County Air Pollution Control District was formed in 1947; the first air pollution agency in the USA.

Despite efforts to regulate nearby power plants, oil refineries, and chemical plant pollution, visible air pollution continued to persist throughout the LA basin to the frustration of environmental activists and healthcare providers (https://formaspace.com/wet-lab/?utm_source=Einpresswire&a...).

In the early 1950s, Dr. Arie Haagen-Smit, a biochemistry professor on sabbatical leave from Caltech, made the connection between automobile exhaust and the persistent air quality problems in the region. Haagen-Smit discovered that the large amounts of unburned hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides (NOx) emitted by LA's growing number of automobiles underwent a powerful photochemical reaction when exposed to strong sunlight – generating the air pollution we know as smog.

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