While several studies of summer air quality have led to tighter emission standards and significant reductions in pollution, new research on winter air shows why pollution levels remain somewhat stagnant in wintertime and suggests that more aggressive emission standards could be necessary.
Professor Solomon Bililign, colleague Marc N. Fiddler and doctoral student Jaime Green comprise North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University’s Atmospheric Physics and Chemistry research group, and they collaborated on the study led by researchers at the University of Washington. The team’s research explored the formation of pollution particulates containing sulfate and nitrate in the wintertime, when they are produced more slowly, but spread over larger geographic areas.
The findings of the study were published the week of July 23 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in an article co-authored by Bililign, Fiddler and Green.
Originally published July 23, 2018.