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NASA says rising ozoneconcentrations hurting soybean crops

A NASA study of satellite measurements concludes that rising surface ozone concentrations are causing nearly two billiondollars in damage to the U.S. soybean crop annually.

The study looked at five years of soybean yields, and surface and atmospheric ozone levels, in Indiana, Illinois and Iowa. NASA research scientist Jack Fishman says that, in the 19th and early 20th century, backgroundsurface ozone concentrations were relatively low so that an increase of 25 percent didn’t affect living organisms. But now, he says, we’ve crossed the line where we can expect to see modest increases in surface ozone result in crop growth being stunted.

NASA says thesevere heat of the Midwest each summer has combined with manmade emissions to create smog and increasingly higher levels of its primary component, surface ozone, over the past several decades.