Quote:
Originally Posted by oil pan 4
" Ozone - a far more long lived pollutant at ground level."
The half life of ozone at ground level is some where around 90 minutes.
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. . . I would like to see your basis for that conclusion.
The mechanism for ozone removal from ground level smog itself results in other irritating and damaging compounds. If the VOCs have aldehydes , these can start the conversion of ozone, but the resultant peroxyacl's are powerful irritants at parts per BILLION concentrations. The ultraviolet light band also causes the interaction of water and ozone leading to the breakup of ozone, but this also results in more peroxyacl production. Either way, the result is a product that is as damaging, if not more so, than the ozone itself. Yes, it eventually passes out of the air and into our rain water in dissolved nitrate forms, but now you are adding to the whole problem of over use of nitrate fertilizers. Add in the production of nitric acid from the direct removal of NOx by moisture and none of this is a pretty picture.
During the Bejing Olympics, transportation and industry was curtailed to reduce the heavy smog during the games. Acceptable reduction of Ozone and irritating resultants took three weeks.
So, even though ozone is not "long lived" in the sense of CO2, it and it's resultants, are very damaging to living tissue for the hours, days and weeks it can linger.