This summer, we had one of the hottest summers on record. Remember how fun that was?
Dallas-Fort Worth endured 47 100-degree days, making it the fourth-hottest on record, but that isn't the only dubious achievement we had thanks to the excessive heat.
DFW experienced the worst air quality season since 2012.
The Fort Worth Report reports that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality issued 61 warnings in 2022 about potentially unsafe ozone conditions, and counted 48 days where ozone concentrations exceeded safe ozone levels, which was the highest number in a decade!
Ozone is more readily formed during higher temperatures – on sunny, warm days when air is stagnant, according to the EPA. Estella Wieser, a media relations specialist for the TCEQ, said, "Increased heat can cause high ozone levels, considered a sign of poor air quality."
This year's hot summer weather and increasing levels of ground level-ozone are cause for concern, according to Jim Schermbeck, director of Downwinders At Risk, an environmental activism group based in Dallas.
"It's a nightmare scenario statistically," he said.
"When you have higher ozone levels, you increase hospital admissions, you increase doctor visits, you increase asthma attacks, you increase heart attacks and strokes. There's all kinds of damage done."
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