Photochemical smog and great smog of Los Angeles

Photochemical smog and great smog of Los Angeles

Photochemical smog is different from air pollution that caused the great smog in Los Angeles and this is basically in terms of the manner in which each of them form along with their composition. When it comes to their composition, photochemical smog is formed from various airborne pollutants, with one of them being nitrogen oxide, along with other volatile organic compounds. On the other hand, when it comes to the formation, photochemical smog is formed from a mixture of both the primary and secondary pollutants, with the primary pollutants sources being automobile emissions while secondary pollutants being components such as the ozone and pans. On the other hand, the air pollution that caused the great smog of Los Angeles was as a result of a combination of high-pressure weather conditions along with industrial pollution. In other words, the great smog of Los Angeles comprised of a mixture of smoke and fog. To this end, it can, therefore, be stated that the difference between photochemical smog and air pollution that caused the great smog in Los Angeles is in regard to the pre-existing weather conditions in that the one that occurred in Los Angeles was as a result of the weather condition, fog. The similarity between the two is that there are some emissions involved in both.

Nevertheless, it should be noted that there are some physical geographic conditions in some regions that make smog such a problem. For instance, cities surrounded by mountains such as Los Angeles and those lying in basins such as Beijing are vulnerable to smog. Such physical geographic features lead to temperature inversion which is a condition whereby a pollution layer gets trapped near the earth’s surface by a slightly warmer layer above instead of the warm air rising. The resultant of this state is smog.