Ozone pollution is threatening East Asia's productive breadbasket, where China, Japan, and South Korea combined to feed a fifth of the world's people. Ozone, or the Troposphere, is the densest and lowest level of the atmosphere. Ozone extends from the Earth's surface and rises to 7 miles.
A study in the journal Nature Food has found that over 3000 test sites in China's heavily Ozone polluted nation have the highest relative yield loss at 33%, 23%, and 9% for wheat, rice, and maize. Losses are higher for hybrid rice than for inbred rice. Ozone directly impacts all three crops.
Grains are not the only plants affected by Ozone. Ozone damages plant internal tissues. All of our terrestrial carbon sinks such as forests and grasslands, are also at risk. The respiratory systems of humans and other mammals can be severely damaged.
Nasa describes the complicated chemical process of Ozone in climate change:
Ozone's impact on climate consists primarily of changes in temperature. The more Ozone in a given parcel of air, the more heat it retains. Ozone generates heat in the stratosphere, both by absorbing the sun's ultraviolet radiation and by absorbing upwelling infrared radiation from the lower atmosphere (troposphere). Consequently, decreased Ozone in the stratosphere results in lower temperatures. Observations show that over recent decades, the mid to upper stratosphere (from 30 to 50 km above the Earth's surface) has cooled by 1° to 6° C (2° to 11° F). This stratospheric cooling has taken place at the same time that greenhouse gas amounts in the lower atmosphere (troposphere) have risen. The two phenomena may be linked.'
China's rapid growth and dizzying development in refrigeration, cars, power plants, petrol, and chemical refineries release nitrous oxides, which are the building blocks for Ozone, notes a study from UC Davis.
Reuters writes (you may need to register to proceed to the article it is not behind a paywall.) on how global emissions of fossil fuels affect temperatures and the air that we breathe and our ability to grow food, putting the world in danger from food insecurity.
China alone is losing a third of its potential wheat production and nearly a quarter of rice yields as ozone disrupts plant growth. That has worrying implications beyond the region, with Asia providing the majority of the world’s rice supply.
Asia is also a hotspot for ozone, formed when sunlight interacts with greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide, carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds that are released by the burning of fossil fuels.
In the stratosphere, a layer of ozone protects the planet from ultraviolet radiation. But closer to Earth’s surface, ozone can harm plants and animals, including humans.
Feng and his colleagues used ozone monitoring data to estimate the crop damage as costing roughly $63 billion. Previous research on the topic has used computer simulations to assess the economic impact of ozone pollution on crops.
Ozone “directly damages food security in China for all three crops,” Feng said.