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Climate Change Reversing Gains In Air Quality Across the US, Study Finds

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Axios: After decades of progress in the U.S. toward cleaner air, climate change-related events will cause a steady deterioration through 2054. New research from the nonprofit First Street Foundation is part of a hyperlocal air quality model showing shifts dow...

The study finds that climate change is increasing the prevalence of two of the air pollutants most harmful to human health: particulate matter, commonly referred to as PM2.5, and tropospheric ozone. Through the use of air quality observations and the development of the new model, First Street's researchers found that the West will be particularly hard hit by increasing amounts of PM2.5 emissions, as wildfires become more frequent and severe. Porter says that whereas pollutants from cars and factors could be targeted by regulations over the past few decades (and the EPA is proposing tightening some further), climate-related deterioration in air quality is a much tougher problem to solve.

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