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Wildfire smoke gets pulled into Pacific cyclone
In a 24-hour loop, NOAA captures smoke from Western wildfires blowing over the Pacific Ocean and swirling into a low pressure system.
For more than a decade, the United States significantly reduced its national smog levels.
But since 2015, smoke from larger wildfires is reversing this trend, a new study finds.
Researchers used smog monitor observations, along with satellite, pollution and weather data and models, and then used artificial intelligence to create a nationwide data set of ozone levels showing smog count at a resolution slightly higher than half a mile.
Wildfires are making US smoggy again
Big picture view:
According to the study’s findings, published Thursday in the journal Science, the national smog level dropped by 11% from 2003 to 2015 as strict federal regulations on power plants, cars and diesel engines kicked in.
The downtown skyline is enveloped in smog shortly before sunset on November 17, 2006 in Los Angeles, California. (Credit: David McNew/Getty Images)
But since then, as wildfires have grown, the nation’s average ground level ozone — which is smog — increased by 4%.
What they're saying:
"Wildfires make ozone, so the increasing trend of wildfire emissions over the recent past is retarding efforts to reduce surface ozone pollution levels," an editor of the study wrote.
These larger wildfires have offset 3.9 years of mitigation progress. If smoke increases at the current rate, the research team said smog will go back up to 2003 levels in 20 years.
The study also found that this reversal increased the incidence of premature deaths from ozone attacking the lungs by 46% after 2013.
RELATED: Los Angeles is most ozone-polluted US region (again), report shows
EPA figures show the national ozone level since 2015 has vacillated around the same mark, going up and down a few percentage points, but Deng said, "by considering everywhere in the U.S., we actually found an increase in ozone starting from 2015."
The method using artificial intelligence is solid because it starts with "massive and reliable datasets," then uses computer models to fill in the gaps in a sensible way to make an "exceptional" high-resolution picture, said University of Delaware environment professor Cristina Archer, who wasn’t part of the study.
This new study looked only at ozone, while a 2023 study by many of the same team looked at small particle pollution. They found the downward trend in soot levels had similarly reversed. Wildfire smoke increased particle pollution deaths by about 670 per year, the 2023 study found.
The Source: This story was reported from Los Angeles. The Associated Press contributed.