Homestead mailing list

[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

On Jul 22, 2007, at 9:39 AM, Don Bowen wrote:

> At 7/22/2007, you wrote:
> > Anybody out there?
>
> Nope.

I have a chapter in my book about air quality. I never dreamed it  
would come to this, Don:

Huge Dust Plumes
From China Cause
Changes in Climate
July 20, 2007; Page B1

One tainted export from China can't be avoided in North America -- air.

An outpouring of dust layered with man-made sulfates, smog,  
industrial fumes, carbon grit and nitrates is crossing the Pacific  
Ocean on prevailing winds from booming Asian economies in plumes so  
vast they alter the climate. These rivers of polluted air can be  
wider than the Amazon and deeper than the Grand Canyon.

"There are times when it covers the entire Pacific Ocean basin like a  
ribbon bent back and forth," said atmospheric physicist V. Ramanathan  
at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif.

On some days, almost a third of the air over Los Angeles and San  
Francisco can be traced directly to Asia. With it comes up to three- 
quarters of the black carbon particulate pollution that reaches the  
West Coast, Dr. Ramanathan and his colleagues recently reported in  
the Journal of Geophysical Research.

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118470650996069354- 
buQPf_FL_nKirvopk__GzCmNOq8_20070818.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top