Types of Air Pollution

The question of what constitutes air pollution should begin with a definition of what constitutes clean air. Even clean air contains many substances other than oxygen and nitrogen, its major constituents, including rare gases such as argon, neon, and helium, as well as ozone, carbon dioxide, radioactive materials from the earth, and various nitrogen and sulfur compounds. The air would also contain variable amounts of water vapor and many suspended solid particles and liquid substances. Suspended materials known as aerosols are defined as dust particles and condensation nuclei, the latter consisting of chloride salts, sulfuric and nitrous acids, phosphorous compounds, and many other chemical substances. These nuclei have an affinity for water and play an important role in the transformation of water vapor into fog, clouds, and precipitation (Miller & Miller, 1989, p. 4).

Some air pollution is natural, deriving from such events as volcanic eruptions, fires, and carbon dioxide eruptions in the form of methane gas. Air pollution consists of the nuclei noted above, which outnumber the number of dust particles in the air many times over, and because of their smaller size they are easily transported by air currents to higher altitudes and greater distances than are dust particles (Miller and Miller, 1989, 4). Natural pollutants may be limited to small areas or may be distributed worldwide on rare occasions (Miller & Miller, 1989, p. 6). When we refer to air

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ldehyde, hydrogen chloride, hydrogen fluoride, hydrogen sulfide, lead, manganese, mercury, nickel, nitric oxides, silicon tetrafluoride, and sulfur dioxide. Other pollutants are petrochemical reactors, produced indirectly through photochemical reactions: hydroxyl radical, nitric acid, nitrogen dioxide, nitrous acid, ozone, peroxyacetyl nitrate, and sulfuric acid (Miller & Miller, 1989, pp. 11-12). EFFECTS OF AIR POLLUTION ON HUMAN HEALTH Air pollution can have an effect on a number of health problems, and it is especially hard on the lungs. In the summer when everyone is outdoors, smog can damage even healthy lungs. Smog is worse in summer because the ozone, the component in smog that makes it hazardous to human health, is created when bright sun and high temperatures react with hydrocarbons and other pollutants produced by factories and auto emissions. Smog normally rises and dissipates in the upper air, but a heat wave can trigger a thermal inversion against which polluted air bounces and, trapped, fans out over the ground. It can remain for days, getting worse and worse. There are certain people who should be especially concerned on smoggy days: --Anyone whose lung capacity is already diminished, such as people wit

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