Air Pollution in Northern Hemisphere May Affect World Food Supply

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Photochemical smog caused by emissions from the burning of fossil fuels now covers major portions of the northern hemisphere. As a result, many of the world's most productive agricultural regions are exposed to harmful amounts of air pollutants. These exposures, which will likely increase in the coming decades as a result of industrial growth, may raise the costs of food productio in the United States and Europe, and lead to food shortages in China and other developing countries.

The warning comes in a new report in the April issue of Science. Written by scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Geophysical Fluid …