Dirty air in Asia is influencing the weather patterns of North America, and affecting people who live thousands of miles away, according to a new study.
The new study was published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Research was conducted by experts at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology.
Pollution across India, China and other locations in Asia are strengthening storms above the Pacific Ocean. These storms are ultimately feeding into and influencing weather systems across North America, according to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"The effects are quite dramatic," lead author Yuan Wang, a researcher at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said to BBC News. "The pollution results in thicker and taller clouds and heavier precipitation."
The study says that winter storms in the northwest Pacific are now 10 percent stronger than they were just 30 years ago before the industrial booms of China, India, and other locations.
Wang and his colleagues not only studied real weather patterns, but also tested aerosol pollutants and how they interact with water vapors.
This helped them understand how smoke coming from power plants mixes with moisture in the air and encourages the development of bigger clouds, according to the study.
"The increasing pollution in Asian countries is not just a local problem, it can affect other parts of the world," Wang said to Live Science.
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