Because the air at 35,000 feet is so clean, even a small number of molecules could increase nitrogen oxides by more than 20 percent, said Dr. Anne Thompson , a Goddard Space Flight Center atmospheric scientist. Ozone that high in the atmosphere begins to act like a greenhouse gas and can contribute to global warming. For now, Thompson says that ozone impacts along the Atlantic Corridor are too small to detect. But industry specialists predict a steady increase in air traffic, suggesting a need for further research into the effects of air travel on the global climate. USGS scientists monitored the alkalinity of streams throughout the Northeast between the mid 1960 s and 1997, and has measured acidity in rain since the early 1980s.
Alkalinity is a measure of the resistance of stream waters to acidity.
The fact that alkalinity of northeastern streams is still low could indicate that rain acidity has not dropped to a level where it is offset by acid neutralizing reactions in soils. Also, the calcium and magnesium content of rain declined over the 12 years from 1984 to 1996. Calcium and magnesium counteract the acidic compounds such as sulfuric and nitric acid in acid rain. That's the good news. However, increases in alkalinity have not been observed in most of these streams.