When it’s hot, plants become a surprisingly large source of air pollution
Trees and shrubs emit more chemicals during heat waves that can react to form ozone
By
Ashley Yeager
5:33pm, May 17, 2017
Planting trees is often touted as a strategy to make cities greener, cleaner and healthier. But during heat waves, city trees actually boost air pollution levels. When temperatures rise, as much as 60 percent of ground-level ozone is created with the help of chemicals emitted by urban shrubbery, researchers report May 17 in Environmental Science & Technology.
While the findings seem counterintuitive, “everything has multiple effects,” says Robert Young, an urban planning expert at the University of Texas at Austin, who was not involved with the study. The results, he cautions, do not mean that programs focused on planting trees in cities should stop. Instead, more stringent measures are needed to control other sources of air pollution, such as vehicle emissions.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/when-its-hot-plants-become-surprisingly-large-source-air-pollution
