Oaks and sweetgums, which currently account for a majority of New York City’s trees, produce huge amounts of volatile compounds called isoprenes. Harmless by themselves, isoprenes interact rapidly with polluting nitrogen oxides emitted from combustion (by vehicles, buildings and industry) to form ground-level ozone―a prime factor in many respiratory ailments, especially chronic bronchitis and asthma. We found that if the NYC Parks maintains past species patterns in new plantings, isoprene production in Manhattan in coming decades will go up by about 140%, and resulting summer ozone levels as much as 30%. In Queens, which has the most room of any borough for more trees, isoprene production could quadruple, with corresponding increases in peak ozone; the other boroughs are somewhere in between.
Wei, D. C. Cao, A. Karambelas, J. Mak, A. Reinmann, R. Commane, High-Resolution Modeling of Summertime Biogenic Isoprene Emissions in New York City, Environ. Sci. Technol., https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.4c00495, 2024
A press release related to the article is available at the State of the Planet.
