Mr. Mass said some buildings near the site, including Stuyvesant High School, had already started installing high-efficiency filters simply to remove fine pollution particles from the indoor air.

Fig. 6 Ship tracks: Bright, linear features that are manifestations of enhanced cloud reflectance associated with pollution particles emitted by ships.

The charged ions the generators emit do, however, have a demonstrable benefit; they act like magnets on pollution particles.

"Animal," she said and gunned the Mercedes up the ramp to the fading sunlight of a Chicago evening, the evening spread in rich red colors, largely the reflection from tiny pollution particles in the air.

It has to be able to live on those noxious gases and pollution particles and convert them to oxygen and perpetuate itself.

In the 1970s Schaefer's own research interests focused on solar energy, aerosols, gases, air quality, and pollution particles in the atmosphere.

For example, climatologists say, fine pollution particles emitted by industry cause clouds to form, and these can have warming or cooling effects, depending on the type of clouds and their location.

Solid pollution particles trap heat and in turn heat the surrounding air.

Haze is caused when sunlight encounters tiny pollution particles in the air, which reduce the clarity and color of what we see, and particularly during humid conditions.

The researchers based their conclusions, published recently in the Journal of Geophysical Research, on a technique they developed that uses a radioactive tracer to measure how quickly fine pollution particles reach the ground from various levels of the atmosphere.