Foul turn: Warm-up brews pollution
The season’s first ozone alert in effect.
Not only will the region have summer-like heat on Wednesday, it will have summer-like pollution.
A "code orange" air-quality alert has been hoisted for the entire region by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission.
The main offender is ground-level ozone, technically a gas that consists of three atoms of oxygen.
Warm, sunny days mixed with light winds and traffic jams constitute the perfect cocktails for ozone production.
This is the first alert of the warm season, says Sean Green, who runs the planning commission program. And we will make a bold prediction and say it won't be the last.
On days such as this people are asked to limit driving if possible, and the use of those gasoline-powered yard tools.
Ozone can be a major irritant for asthmatics and other folks with respiratory and circulatory issues.
The concept of "ozone" is understandably confusing to some people since it appears both in the high atmosphere, where it's good, and the ground, where it isn't.
The stratospheric ozone is naturally occurring and is the planet's sunscreen that repels harmful rays from the surface.
Ground-level ozone is formed by chemical reactions between nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds.
Cars and weed-whackers aren't the only contributors. Power plants, refineries, and other industrial facilities that emit pollutants also do their share.