We all know that in simple words, the Equator is an an imaginary line on the Earth’s surface approximately equidistant from the North Pole and South Pole, but what a chemical Equator is, was out of my league. But now I know …

Scientists at the University of York from the University’s Department of Chemistry, discovered an atmospheric chemical equator some 50 km wide up in the skies of the Western Pacific, which is supposed to divide the polluted air of the Northern Hemisphere from the highly polluted atmosphere in the Southern Hemisphere.

The study, which is part of the ACTIVE project (Aerosol and Chemical Transport in Tropical Convection) funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, revealed that carbon monoxide – combustion – increased from 40 parts per billion to the south, to 160 parts per billion in the north. All these were caused by extensive forest fires to the north of the chemical equator.

I’ll have be honest. I never knew that the two chemical and meteorological air masses of the two hemispheres are different, and even though it may not be that important for you and me, scientists who’ve been studying the movement of pollutants and their impact on climate change, are happy to include this theory in their model simulations that will help with pollution mapping.

If you’d like to read more about it, check out ScienceDaily.

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