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Science / Could thunderstorms cause a life-threatening concentration of ozone?
« on: November 24, 2016, 10:05:54 PM »
I've been seeing stories about the episode of thunderstorm asthma that took place in Melbourne on the 21st. All the articles I've seen attribute the cause to pollen, even though from some of the early stories, a lot of the people affected didn't have hay fever.
This paper found that pollen and fungal spores didn't seem to affect people during thunderstorms, while ozone did.
Thunderstorms bring ozone down to ground level, and the symptoms people describe certainly seem to correlate with ozone exposure.
This has only been happening since 1983, so it seems odd to me that pollen would only recently develop this peculiar capacity to explode during thundertorms.
I was hoping that the weather enthusiasts would care to discuss whether it would be possible for a thunderstorm to increase ozone at ground level to lethal concentrations for at-risk individuals.
*Edited to fix links.
This paper found that pollen and fungal spores didn't seem to affect people during thunderstorms, while ozone did.
Thunderstorms bring ozone down to ground level, and the symptoms people describe certainly seem to correlate with ozone exposure.
This has only been happening since 1983, so it seems odd to me that pollen would only recently develop this peculiar capacity to explode during thundertorms.
I was hoping that the weather enthusiasts would care to discuss whether it would be possible for a thunderstorm to increase ozone at ground level to lethal concentrations for at-risk individuals.
*Edited to fix links.
