Middle Eastern conflicts have lowered air pollution

Los Angeles Times : Satellite images of the Middle East over the past 10 years have revealed a drop in the levels of nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, and other air pollutants. The drop does not appear to be the result of any clean-air laws or other changes but does coincide with the spreading conflicts there. Jos Lelieveld of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany, and his colleagues found the trend in data collected by the Ozone Monitoring Instrument on NASA’s Aura spacecraft. They were studying the impact of air-quality standards adopted by countries in the region. Since 2011, when the Arab Spring protests reached Syria and escalated into civil war, the concentration of NO has dropped by 40% over Damascus and by 50% over Aleppo. Similar drops in emissions were noted in Iraq and Egypt. However, emissions rose in Beirut and other parts of Lebanon, probably because of the flood of refugees to those countries.