Pollution from East Asia affects air quality in the distant tropics.
A team led by Matthew Ashfold at the University of Cambridge, UK, detected elevated levels of a chlorine-containing gas at two remote sites in tropical Borneo during the Northern Hemisphere winter of 2008–09. The team used an atmospheric transport model to show that the chemical — an indicator of a range of industrial pollutants — was transported southward from east Asia by rapidly moving cold air masses.
During cold surges, east Asian air pollution (pictured) can reach the equator in a few days. If ozone-degrading chlorine pollutants are lifted by convection into the tropical atmosphere, even short-lived compounds might have a negative effect on stratospheric ozone, the authors say.
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Asian pollution hitchhikes south. Nature 520, 267 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/520267b
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/520267b
