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Air Quality: Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project
From the report:
"Air quality in the Sierra Nevada is highly variable in quality—
excellent much of the time and in many places, seriously
degraded at other times and places. Many early writers extolled
the quality of the air, and in the early twentieth century
the Sierra Nevada was even the site of sanatoriums. Yet
the Sierra Nevada was typically quite smoky in the summers
as many small fires burned for months until the rains extinguished
them each fall. There are two distinct aspects of airquality
issues in the Sierra."
"The first relates to state and federal
ambient air quality standards (ozone, particulate mass, visibility
reduction), which are periodically violated in the Sierra
Nevada. The second relates to air-quality impacts not
subject to ambient-air standards (acid deposition, transport
of air toxics, eutrophication of Lake Tahoe), which have a more
ecological than human health focus. At present, the most important deleterious impacts are
closely tied to the efficient wind transport of air pollutants
from the Central Valley of California into the western slopes
of the Sierra Nevada up to elevations of 6,000 feet or more.
This transport is strong in summer, weak or absent in winter,
severe in the southern reaches, and more modest north of
Sacramento, where mountain slopes are more gentle. Of these
pollutants, ozone has the best documented and most important
effects, especially in its connection to serious injury to
Jeffrey and ponderosa pines. Fine-particulate sulfates, nitrates,
and smoke are also transported by the same winds, especially
between April and October, and sharply reduce visibility.
Other components of valley air, including nitrates, pesticides,
and herbicides, are also efficiently transported into the mountains
and deposited on vegetation and in watersheds, often
with poorly understood but potentially significant effects."
air quality-sierra-wide status, ozone damage, ozone standards, air quality-smoke, air quality-visibility, air quality-dust, air quality-PM-10, forests-ozone injury, graph-ozone concentration versus time in the southern Sierra, winter smoke-urban health effects, wildfire and prescribed fires-smoke, air quality-degradation of lake tahoe, air-quality strategy
jeffrey pine, ponderosa pine
June 01, 1996 02:00 AM
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Visalia, Ash mountain, Giant forest, Sequoia National Park, Yosemite National Park, Bliss State Park, San Bernardino National Forest, Crater Lake National Park
Emerald lake, Lake Tahoe
Truckee, California