Wildfires have worsened ozone levels across the United States so much over the last decade that they have reversed around four years of progress, a new study has found.
Surface ozone levels, or smog concentrations, steadily increased from 2015 to 2024, deteriorating air quality across the Midwest and Western U.S., researchers at the University of Iowa found in a study released Thursday. According to the study authors, this contributed to an increase of 318 premature deaths per year from fire-sourced ozone since 2013. Their NASA-funded research mapped these ozone levels in kilometer-by-kilometer grids across the entire continental U.S between 2003 and 2024.
Read more in Inside Climate News here.
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