The Causes and Effects of Smog

A smoggy view of the Shanghai Skyline

xPACIFICA / Stone / Getty Images

Smog is a mixture of air pollutants—nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds—that combine with sunlight to form ozone.

Ozone can be beneficial or harmful depending on its location. Ozone in the stratosphere, high above the Earth, acts as a barrier that protects humans and the environment from excessive amounts of solar ultraviolet radiation. This is the "good kind" of ozone.

On the other hand, ground-level ozone, trapped near the ground by heat inversions or other weather conditions, is what causes the respiratory distress and burning eyes associated with smog.

How Did Smog Get Its Name?

The term "smog" was first used in London during the early 1900s to describe the combination of smoke and fog that often blanketed the city. According to several sources, the term was first coined by Dr. Henry Antoine des Voeux in his paper, “Fog and Smoke,” which he presented at a meeting of the Public Health Congress in July 1905.

The type of smog described by Dr. des Voeux was a combination of smoke and sulfur dioxide, which resulted from the heavy use of coal to heat homes and businesses and to run factories in Victorian England.

When we talk about smog today, we’re referring to a more complex mixture of various air pollutants—nitrogen oxides and other chemical compounds—that interact with sunlight to form ground-level ozone that hangs like a heavy haze over many cities in industrialized countries.

What Causes Smog?

Smog is produced by a set of complex photochemical reactions involving volatile organic compounds (VOCs), nitrogen oxides and sunlight, which form ground-level ozone.

Smog-forming pollutants come from many sources such as automobile exhaust, power plants, factories, and many consumer products, including paint, hairspray, charcoal starter fluid, chemical solvents, and foam plastic products like a disposable cups.

In typical urban areas, at least half of the smog precursors come from cars, buses, trucks, and boats.

Major smog occurrences often are linked to heavy motor vehicle traffic, high temperatures, sunshine, and calm winds. Weather and geography affect the location and severity of smog. Because temperature regulates the length of time it takes for smog to form, smog can occur more quickly and be more severe on a hot, sunny day.

When temperature inversions occur (that is, when warm air stays near the ground instead of rising) and the wind is calm, smog may remain trapped over a city for days. As traffic and other sources add more pollutants to the air, the smog gets worse. This situation occurs frequently in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Ironically, smog is often more severe farther away from the sources of pollution, because the chemical reactions that cause smog take place in the atmosphere while pollutants are drifting on the wind.

Where Does Smog Occur?

Severe smog and ground-level ozone problems exist in many major cities around the world, from Mexico City to Beijing. In the United States, smog affects much of California, from San Francisco to San Diego, the mid-Atlantic seaboard from Washington, DC, to southern Maine, and major cities in the South and Midwest.

To varying degrees, the majority of U.S. cities with populations of 250,000 or more have experienced problems with smog and ground-level ozone.

According to the American Lung Association, nearly half of all U.S. residents live in areas where the smog is so bad that pollution levels routinely exceed safety standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

What Are the Effects of Smog?

Smog is made up of a combination of air pollutants that can compromise human health, harm the environment, and even cause property damage.

Smog can cause or aggravate health problems such as asthma, emphysema, chronic bronchitis and other respiratory problems as well as eye irritation and reduced resistance to colds and lung infections.

The ozone in smog also inhibits plant growth and can cause widespread damage to crops and forests.

How Can You Recognize or Detect Smog Where You Live? 

Generally speaking, you will know smog when you see it. Smog is a visible form of air pollution that often appears as a thick haze. Look toward the horizon during daylight hours, and you can see how much smog is in the air. High concentrations of nitrogen oxides will often give the air a brownish tint.

In addition, most cities now measure the concentration of pollutants in the air and provide public reports—often published in newspapers and broadcast on local radio and television stations—when smog reaches potentially unsafe levels.

The EPA has developed the Air Quality Index (AQI) (formerly known as the Pollutant Standards Index) for reporting concentrations of ground-level ozone and other common air pollutants.

Air quality is measured by a nationwide monitoring system that records concentrations of ground-level ozone and several other air pollutants at more than a thousand locations across the United States. The EPA then interprets that data according to the standard AQI index, which ranges from zero to 500. The higher the AQI value for a specific pollutant, the greater the danger to public health and the environment.

View Article Sources
  1. Ozone Alerts.” National Institutes of Health.

  2. Fowler, David, et al. “A Chronology of Global Air Quality.” Phil Trans R Soc A, vol. 378, no. 2183, 2020, p. 20190314., doi:10.1098/rsta.2019.0314

  3. Möller, Detlev. History, Change and Sustainability. Berlin, De Gruyter, 2020.

  4. Maynard, Robert L., and Vyvyan Howard, editors. Particulate Matter: Properties and Effects on Health. Taylor and Francis, 2020.

  5. Ground-Level Ozone Basics.” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

  6. The Plain English Guide to the Clean Air Act.” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 2015.

  7. "Facilities Development Manual." Wisconsin Department of Transportation. 2019.

  8. Temperature Inversions Impact Air Quality.” Arizona Department of Environmental Quality.

  9. Danger in the Air: Unhealthy Air Days in 2010 and 2011.” Environment American Research & Policy Center. September 2011.

  10. Nearly Half of U.S. Breathing Unhealthy Air; Record-breaking Air Pollution in Nine Western Cities.” American Lung Association. Published April 21, 2020.

  11. AQI Toolkit for Teachers.” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards. Published September 2013.