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.