However, University of Houston researchers believe there’s a connection between ozone levels in Houston and climate change. Robert Talbot is a Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry at UH. He and his colleagues published a paper last week in the journal Atmosphere, which took 23 years of ground-level ozone data from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and compared it to meteorological data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They found climate change – in the form of a stronger sea breeze resulting from warmer soil temperatures — contributed to a drop over time in high-ozone days in the Houston area.
We talk with Talbot about his report and clarify that we’re still experiencing a high number of high ozone days in Greater Houston, but that – at least according to the UH research – what improvements we have seen over the last 20-plus years may ironically have as much or more to do with climate change brought on by higher carbon emissions than any intentional efforts locally to reduce those emissions.