Health and Human Services Department People are capable of smelling ozone trouble, if they just use their noses. Learning to recognize what ozone smells like enables people to make educated decisions about how much time they spend outside. Ozone exposure can be especially harmful to active children and adults, those with respiratory diseases and the elderly. Office machines such as copiers and laser printers generate electric fields that also produce a small amount of ozone that you can easily smell.
Ozone is a gas composed of three atoms of oxygen.
It occurs naturally in the Earth's atmosphere and creates a shield against the sun's ultraviolet rays. It also forms at ground level when emissions by cars, power plants, refineries, chemical plants and other sources react chemically with sunlight. Unhealthy levels of ground-level ozone typically form in the afternoon during the hot summer months, when sunny days with high temperatures and low wind speeds are more common, says McMullen. Dr. Hanania is conducting a study exploring the correlation between pollutants and emergency room visits to Ben Taub General Hospital by adult asthmatics. A reduction in lung function.