Research Suggests 40% Of Tokyo's Fine Particle Air Pollution Is From China - NYT
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Recent research in Japan suggests that China’s contribution to average annual fine-particle pollution ranges from 40 percent in the Tokyo area to 60 percent in Kyushu, which is closer to China, according to Hiroshi Tanimoto, who heads the global atmospheric chemistry section at Japan’s National Institute for Environmental Studies. On average, about 10 percent to 20 percent of Japan’s springtime ozone comes from Chinese emissions, he said.
“Transport of air pollutants from China enhances the background level entering into Japan,” Dr. Tanimoto said in an email. The impact to effect on Korea is even greater, he added.
Much depends on wind patterns. Often, the haze over Chinese cities is a product of stagnant air and therefore the pollutants may not travel vast distances, said Michael Prather, a professor of earth system science at the University of California, Irvine. The small particles that reach the United States often come from wind-propelled dust storms in the Gobi Desert, he said. China’s main effect on pollution in the United States, however, involves ozone, scientists say.
The transporting of pollutants across the Pacific Ocean takes at least four or five days, and they ride west-to-east winds at heights of 6,000 feet to 20,000 feet, according to Dan Jaffe, a professor of atmospheric and environmental chemistry at the University of Washington-Bothell. He works at a station 9,000 feet high on a mountain in Oregon because it is easier to measure pollutants from Asia there than at sea level.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/26/business/energy-environment/worries-in-the-path-of-chinas-air.html?_r=0
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