Effects of Air Pollution

Lesson Objectives

• Describe the damage that is being done by smog.
• Discuss how acid rain is formed and the damage it does.
• Discuss how chlorofluorocarbons destroy the ozone layer.

Vocabulary

• acid rain
• alkaline
• bioaccumulation
• ozone hole
• pH scale
• polar stratospheric clouds (PSC)

Introduction

People in developing countries often do not have laws to protect the air that they breathe. The World Health Organization estimates that 22 million people die each year from complications caused by air pollution. Even in the United States, more than 120 million Americans live in areas where the air is considered unhealthy. This lesson looks at the human health and environmental problems caused by different types of air pollution.

Smog Effects on the Environment

All air pollutants cause some damage to living creatures and the environment. Different types of pollutants cause different types of harm.

Particulates

Particulates reduce visibility. In the western United States, people can now ordinarily see only about 100 to 150 kilometers (60 to 90 miles), which is one-half to two-thirds the natural (pre-pollution) range on a clear day. In the East, people can only see about 40 to 60 kilometers (25-35 miles), about one-fifth the distance they could see without any air pollution (Figure below).

Particulates reduce the amount of sunshine that reaches the ground, which may reduce photosynthesis. Since particulates form the nucleus for raindrops, snowflakes, or other forms of precipitation, precipitation may increase when particulates are high. An increase in particles in the air seems to increase the number of raindrops, but often decreases their size.

By reducing sunshine, particulates can also alter air temperature. In the three days after the terrorists attacks on September 11, 2001, jet airplanes did not fly over the United States. Without the gases from jet contrails blocking sunlight, air temperature increased 1°C (1.8°F) across the United States (Figure below) . Imagine how much all of the sources of particulates combine to reduce temperatures. What might this effect be on global warming?

Ozone

Ozone damages some plants. Since ozone effects accumulate, plants that live a long time show the most damage. Some species of trees appear to be the most susceptible. If a forest contains ozone-sensitive trees, they may die out and be replaced by species that are not as easily harmed. This can change an entire ecosystem, because animals and plants may not be able to survive without the habitats created by the native trees.

Some crop plants show ozone damage (Figure below). When exposed to ozone, spinach leaves become spotted. Soybeans and other crops have reduced productivity. In developing nations, where getting every last bit of food energy out of the agricultural system is critical, any loss is keenly felt.

Oxides

Oxide air pollutants also damage the environment. NO₂ is a toxic, orange-brown colored gas that gives air a distinctive orange color and an unpleasant odor. Nitrogen and sulfur-oxides in the atmosphere create acids that fall as acid rain.

KQED: Lichen Point to Pollution

Lichen get a lot of their nutrients from the air so they may be good indicators of changes in the atmosphere such as increased nitrogen. In Yosemite National Park, this could change the ecosystem of the region and lead to fires and other problems. Learn more at: http://science.kqed.org/quest/audio/lichen-point-to-pollution/.

Smog Effects on Human Health

Human health suffers in locations with high levels of air pollution.

Pollutants and their Effects

Different pollutants have different health effects:

• Lead is the most common toxic material and is responsible for lead poisoning.
• Carbon monoxide can kill people in poorly ventilated spaces, such as tunnels.
• Nitrogen and sulfur-oxides cause lung disease and increased rates of asthma, emphysema, and viral infections such as the flu.
• Ozone damages the human respiratory system, causing lung disease. High ozone levels are also associated with increased heart disease and cancer.
• Particulates enter the lungs and cause heart or lung disease. When particulate levels are high, asthma attacks are more common. By some estimates, 30,000 deaths a year in the United States are caused by fine particle pollution.

Human Illnesses from Air Pollution

Many but not all cases of asthma can be linked to air pollution. During the 1996 Olympic Games, Atlanta, Georgia, closed off their downtown to private vehicles. This action decreased ozone levels by 28%. At the same time, there were 40% fewer hospital visits for asthma. Can scientists conclude without a shadow of a doubt that the reduction in ozone caused the reduction in hospital visits? What could they do to make that determination?

Lung cancer among people who have never smoked is around 15% and is increasing. One study showed that the risk of being afflicted with lung cancer increases directly with a person’s exposure to air pollution (Figure below). The study concluded that no level of air pollution should be considered safe. Exposure to smog also increased the risk of dying from any cause, including heart disease.

One study found that in the United States, children develop asthma at more than twice the rate of two decades ago and at four times the rate in Canada. Adults also suffer from air pollution-related illnesses that include lung disease, heart disease, lung cancer, and weakened immune systems. The asthma rate worldwide is rising 20% to 50% every decade.

Do you know why you are only supposed to eat large predatory fish like tuna infrequently? It is because of the bioaccumulation of mercury in those species.

Some pollutants remain in an organism throughout its life, a phenomenon called bioaccumulation. In this process, an organism accumulates the entire amount of a toxic compound that it consumes over its lifetime. Not all substances bioaccumulate. Can you name one that does not? Aspirin does not bioaccumulate; if it did, a person would quickly accumulate a toxic amount in her body. Compounds that bioaccumulate are usually stored in the organism’s fat.

Mercury is released into the atmosphere when coal is burned (Figure below). But breathing the mercury is not harmful. In the atmosphere, the mercury forms small droplets that are deposited in water or sediments.

In the sediments, bacteria convert the droplets to the hazardous compound methyl mercury. Bacteria and plankton store all of the mercury from all of the seawater they ingest (Figure below). A small fish that eats bacteria and plankton accumulates all of the mercury from all of the tiny creatures it eats over its lifetime. A big fish accumulates all of the mercury from all of the small fish it eats over its lifetime. For a tuna at the top of the food chain, that’s a lot of mercury.

So tuna pose a health hazard to anything that eats them because their bodies are so high in mercury. This is why the government recommends limits on the amount of tuna that people eat. Limiting intake of large predatory fish is especially important for children and pregnant women. If the mercury just stayed in a person’s fat, it would not be harmful, but that fat is used when a woman is pregnant or nursing a baby. A person will also get the mercury into her system when she (or he) burns the fat while losing weight.

Methyl mercury poisoning can cause nervous system or brain damage, especially in infants and children. Children may experience brain damage or developmental delays (Figure below). Like mercury, other metals and VOCS can bioaccumulate, causing harm to animals and people high on the food chain.

Acid Rain

Acid rain is caused by sulfur and nitrogen oxides emanating from power plants or metal refineries. The smokestacks have been built tall so that pollutants don’t sit over cities (Figure below).

As they move, these pollutants combine with water vapor to form sulfuric and nitric acids. The acid droplets form acid fog, rain, snow, or they may be deposited dry. Most typical is acid rain (Figure below).

pH and Acid Rain

Acid rain water is more acidic than normal rain water. Acidity is measured on the pH scale. Lower numbers are more acidic and higher numbers are less acidic (also called more alkaline) (Figure below). Natural rain is somewhat acidic with a pH of 5.6; acid rain must have a pH of less than 5.0. A small change in pH represents a large change in acidity: rain with a pH of 4.6 is 10 times more acidic than normal rain (with a pH of 5.6). Rain with a pH of 3.6 is 100 times more acidic.

Regions with a lot of coal-burning power plants have the most acidic rain. The acidity of average rainwater in the northeastern United States has fallen to between 4.0 and 4.6. Acid fog has even lower pH with an average of around 3.4. One fog in Southern California in 1986 had a pH of 1.7, equal to toilet-bowl cleaner.

In arid climates, such as in Southern California, acids deposit on the ground dry. Acid precipitation ends up on the land surface and in water bodies. Some forest soils in the northeast are five to ten times more acidic than they were two or three decades ago. Acid droplets move down through acidic soils to lower the pH of streams and lakes even more. Acids strip soil of metals and nutrients, which collect in streams and lakes. As a result, stripped soils may no longer provide the nutrients that native plants need.

Effects of Acid Rain

Acid rain takes a toll on ecosystems (Figure below). Plants that are exposed to acids become weak and are more likely to be damaged by bad weather, insect pests, or disease. Snails die in acid soils, so songbirds do not have as much food to eat. Young birds and mammals do not build bones as well and may not be as strong. Eggshells may also be weak and break more easily.

As lakes become acidic, organisms die off. No fish can live if the pH drops below 4.5. Organic material cannot decay, and mosses take over the lake. Wildlife that depend on the lake for drinking water suffer population declines.

Crops are damaged by acid rain. This is most noticeable in poor nations where people can’t afford to fix the problems with fertilizers or other technology.

Acid rain damages cultural monuments like buildings and statues. These include the U.S. Capital and many buildings in Europe, such as Westminster Abbey (Figure below).

Carbonate rocks neutralize acids and so some regions do not suffer the effects of acid rain nearly as much. Limestone in the midwestern United States protects the area. One reason that the northeastern United States is so vulnerable to acid rain damage is that the rocks are not carbonates.

Because pollutants can travel so far, much of the acid rain that falls hurts states or nations other than ones where the pollutants were released. All the rain that falls in Sweden is acidic and fish in lakes all over the country are dying. The pollutants come from the United Kingdom and Western Europe, which are now working to decrease their emissions. Canada also suffers from acid rain that originates in the United States, a problem that is also improving. Southeast Asia is experiencing more acid rain between nations as the region industrializes.

Ozone Depletion

At this point you might be asking yourself, “Is ozone bad or is ozone good?” There is no simple answer to that question: It depends on where the ozone is located (Figure below).

• In the troposphere, ozone is a pollutant.
• In the ozone layer in the stratosphere, ozone screens out high energy ultraviolet radiation and makes Earth habitable.

The Ozone Hole

Human-made chemicals are breaking ozone molecules in the ozone layer. Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are the most common but there are others including halons, methyl bromide, carbon tetrachloride, and methyl chloroform. CFCs were once widely used because they are cheap, nontoxic, nonflammable, and non-reactive. They were used as spray-can propellants, refrigerants, and in many other products.

Once they are released into the air, CFCs float up to the stratosphere. Air currents move them toward the poles. In the winter, they freeze onto nitric acid molecules in polar stratospheric clouds (PSC) (Figure below). In the spring, the sun’s warmth starts the air moving, and ultraviolet light breaks the CFCs apart. The chlorine atom floats away and attaches to one of the oxygen atoms on an ozone molecule. The chlorine pulls the oxygen atom away, leaving behind an O₂ molecule, which provides no UV protection. The chlorine then releases the oxygen atom and moves on to destroy another ozone molecule. One CFC molecule can destroy as many as 100,000 ozone molecules.

Ozone destruction creates the ozone hole where the layer is dangerously thin (Figure below). As air circulates over Antarctica in the spring, the ozone hole expands northward over the southern continents, including Australia, New Zealand, southern South America, and southern Africa. UV levels may rise as much as 20% beneath the ozone hole. The hole was first measured in 1981 when it was 2 million square km (900,000 square miles). The 2006 hole was the largest ever observed at 28 million square km (11.4 million square miles). The size of the ozone hole each year depends on many factors, including whether conditions are right for the formation of PSCs.

Find out how the ozone hole forms and view the hole over time on this National Geographic video: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/081103-ozone-video-vin.html.

Ozone loss also occurs over the North Polar Region, but it is not enough for scientists to call it a hole. Why do you think there is less ozone loss over the North Pole area? The region of low ozone levels is small because the atmosphere is not as cold and PSCs do not form as readily. Still, springtime ozone levels are relatively low. This low moves south over some of the world’s most populated areas in Europe, North America, and Asia. At 40°N, the latitude of New York City, UV-B has increased about 4% per decade since 1978. At 55°N, the approximate latitude of Moscow and Copenhagen, the increase has been 6.8% per decade since 1978.

This video explains an importance of the stratospheric ozone layer to life on Earth (8c): (1:52).

This NASA video discusses the ingredients of ozone depletion of Antarctica and the future of the ozone hole, including the effect of climate change (8c): (2:20).

Effects of Ozone Loss

Ozone losses on human health and environment include:

• Increases in sunburns, cataracts (clouding of the lens of the eye), and skin cancers. A loss of ozone of only 1% is estimated to increase skin cancer cases by 5% to 6%.
• Decreases in the human immune system’s ability to fight off infectious diseases.
• Reduction in crop yields because many plants are sensitive to ultraviolet light.
• Decreases in phytoplankton productivity. A decrease of 6% to 12% has been measured around Antarctica, which may be at least partly related to the ozone hole. The effects of excess UV on other organisms is not known.
• Whales in the Gulf of California have been found to have sunburn cells in their lowest skin layers, indicating very severe sunburns. The problem is greatest with light colored species or species that spend more time near the sea surface.

When the problem with ozone depletion was recognized, world leaders took action. CFCs were banned in spray cans in some nations in 1978. The greatest production of CFCs was in 1986, but it has declined since then. This will be discussed more in the next lesson.

Lesson Summary

• Air pollutants damage human health and the environment. Particulates reduce visibility, alter the weather, and cause lung problems such as asthma attacks.
• Ozone damages plants and can also cause lung disease. Acid rain damages forests, crops, buildings, and statues.
• The ozone hole, caused by ozone-destroying chemicals, allows more UV radiation to strike the Earth.
• UV radiation can cause plankton populations to decline and skin cancers in humans to increase, along with other effects.

Review Questions

1. Why is visibility so reduced in the United States?
2. Why do health recommendations suggest that people limit the amount of tuna they eat?
3. Why might ozone pollution or acid rain change an entire ecosystem?
4. Why does air pollution cause problems in developing nations more than in developed ones?
5. Why are children more vulnerable to the effects of air pollutants than adults?
6. Describe bioaccumulation.
7. How does pollution indirectly kill or harm plants?
8. What do you think the effect is of jet airplanes on global warming?
9. Why is air pollution a local, regional, and global problem?
10. How do CFCs deplete the ozone layer?

Points to Consider

• Since mercury bioaccumulates and coal-fired power plants continue to emit mercury into the atmosphere, what will be the consequence for people who like to eat tuna and other large predatory fish?
• What are the possible causes of rising asthma rates in children?
• A ban has been imposed on CFCs and some other ozone-depleting substances. How will the ozone hole change in response to this ban?

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