America's polluted air makes us ill

Jayne Atherton|Metro13 April 2012

Polluted air from America is threatening the health of people in Britain, experts fear.

Sooty particles from 5,000 miles away are being dumped on northern Europe where they could be to blame for a rise in lung disease, say scientists.

The chemicals, emitted from industrial centres on the US East Coast, sweep north as far as Nova Scotia where they are sucked five miles high into the jet stream, it is feared.

They are then blown across the Atlantic. A team of 40 scientists from seven British universities is to join hundreds of other researchers in the Azores, in the North Atlantic, on a major project to monitor the pollution.

Researcher Dr Alastair Lewis said: 'It's highly likely that air leaving the States contains a cocktail of nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons, which are emitted from vehicle exhausts and power stations.

'We want to know how these will react together on the way to Europe and notably whether they will form ozone and particles, both of which can be harmful to humans.'

Sooty particles that lodge in the lungs are also harmful and linked to tens of thousands of deaths each year in Europe.

During the 2003 summer heatwave, levels of ozone and particles soared, resulting in up to 800 extra deaths across Britain.

'Although we know that some of this pollution was produced locally in the UK, we still don't know what the contribution was from other countries,' said Dr Lewis, from the Intercontinental Transport of Ozone and Precursors programme.

'Some, but not necessarily all, of this imported pollution might have come from America.'

Five aircraft, a research ship, and numerous ground stations and satellites will help scientists examine where the pollution plumes travel.

The researchers will test for chemical reactions in the air and measure particles reaching Europe.

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