The Salt Lake valley is beloved for its beautiful mountains and great outdoor recreation options from mountain climbing to biking and more. But there’s a less lovable side to being outdoors some days, too, in the form of frequent air pollution and summer ozone.
Recent extreme heat, drought and wildfires just exacerbate the problem.
Part of the solution to what Ryan Bares, Utah implementation planner and environmental scientist in the Utah Division of Air Quality, calls an “interesting challenge that takes a team because of its complexity” was shown to the media Friday: a King Air 350 research plane on its maiden scientific research “campaign” to measure and map different components that together form the troublesome ozone.
Ozone in the upper atmosphere is protective, a kind of natural Earth sunscreen. But at lower elevations, it’s just harmful pollution that’s like breathing bleach, as Emily Fischer, a professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University, puts it. It triggers asthma, damages plants, reduces lung capacity and leads to acute respiratory inflammation…