Existing regulations may not effectively target a large source of fine, organic particle pollutants that contribute to hazy skies and poor air quality over Los Angeles, according to a study scheduled for the October 15 issue of ACS' Environmental Science and Technology, a semi-monthly journal.

Using sophisticated unmanned aircraft, research scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego hope to assess Southern California's potential for climate change and better understand the sources of air pollution.

UC San Diego computer scientists have created a fog and smoke machine for computer graphics that cuts the computational cost of making realistic smoky and foggy 3-D images, such as beams of light from a lighthouse piercing thick fog.

Chemists at the University of California, San Diego have discovered that a chemical reaction in the atmosphere above major cities long assumed to be unimportant in urban air pollution is in fact a significant contributor to urban ozone—the main component of smog.

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have developed a new tool for quantitatively measuring elusive atmospheric chemicals that play a key role in the formation of photochemical smog. Better measurements will improve scientists' understanding of the mechanisms of smog formation and their ability to select and predict the effectiveness of various mitigation strategies.

David H. Ingbar MD, president of the American Thoracic Society, today called the proposed standards issued by the Environmental Protection Agency for ozone pollution-commonly known as smog-"unhealthy for America's kids, unhealthy for America's seniors, and unhealthy for America."

The grime that accumulates on windows, buildings, roads, and other surfaces in urban areas could be an important source of nitrogen oxide air pollutants, scientists in Canada conclude in a report scheduled for the June 15 issue of ACS' Environmental Science & Technology, a semi-monthly journal. Nitrogen oxides, emitted in the burning of fossil fuels, combine with other air pollutants termed volatile organic compounds to form smog.

In addition to nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides, many volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in air contribute to smog and high ozone levels, as well as potentially damaging human health. Clean-air laws are thus rightly continuing to become stricter. Most modern air-purification systems are based on photocatalysts, adsorbents such as activated charcoal, or ozonolysis.