Salt Mist Is the Right Seasoning for Ozone

Shipping ports face a newly discovered air pollution problem--the production of the ozone precursor nitryl chloride. Nitryl chloride was detected for the first time in the lowest part of the Earth's atmosphere by a team from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that was monitoring air quality in Galveston Bay to understand why nearby Houston, Texas, has one of the worst air pollution problems in the nation. Salts in ocean mists were thought to be relatively inert until the connection to ozone was uncovered. People never before thought that nitryl chloride was important, says James Roberts, a NOAA research chemist and the team's coordinator.