Feeding off nitrogen-laden smog, the grasses left Joshua tree forests vulnerable to large-scale brush fires such as one that charred 14,000 acres in 1999.
For 10 years, Cassini's images have helped scientists peer beneath the moon's orange, nitrogen-rich smog to see amazing features on the face of Titan like vast lakes made of methane and ethane that are larger than North America's Great Lakes and continually replenished by hydrocarbon rain showers.
This new quality was quickly seized upon and its effect on reducing a major contribution in the formation of smog, nitrogen oxide, was confirmed in the lab.
It seems that our alternative to keeping things in reasonable working order on this planet is an extremely dicey future on a brave new world of liquid nitrogen, tar, and smog.
Two decades ago when the agency required technology to reduce emissions of a different pollutant — nitrogen oxides, a smog precursor — that, too, was expensive and not thoroughly demonstrated, but today it is routine, they said.
Also, some types of trees emit large amounts of the volatile organic hydrocarbons (VOCs) that combine with oxides of nitrogen to form smog. Ash and maple are among the more VOC-free trees, emitting only about 1 VOC unit (defined as one microgram per hour per gram of dry leaf).
The nitrogen in Southland smog fertilizes invasive grasses that spread across the park, carrying ecologically destructive wildfires with them.
EPA officials said these measures would eliminate at least as much nitrogen oxide, a smog-forming pollutant linked to heart and lung disease, as that stemming from Fiat Chrysler's actions.
The change would also sharply lower the exceptionally high levels of nitrogen dioxide--smog's brown haze--in Long Beach and the harbor area, according to the AQMD.
Although fuel-efficient bikes emit significantly less carbon dioxide per mile, the ARB says they are, on average, 14 times more polluting per mile when it comes to emissions of oxides of nitrogen and hydrocarbons -- smog-forming pollutants that have been shown to trigger asthma attacks and worsen respiratory and cardiac illnesses.
