Dirty air may affect water quality, drought conditions
By Susanne Rust, California Watch
Dirty air may not just affect your lungs.
It could affect your tap, too.
Scientists at the Desert Research Institute, a division of the Nevada System of Higher Education, say polluted air can cut a storm’s snowfall in half.
Randy Borys, co-author of the study and director of the institute’s Storm Peak Laboratory in Steamboat Springs, Colo., said pollutants aren’t creating drought – they are just making it worse.
What’s happening is that pollutants, such as sulfate, nitrate or other compounds, attract tiny droplets of moisture in the atmosphere.