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In the summer of 2004 the first really massive study of transoceanic pollution was undertaken, fronted by NASA and NOAA, with assists from Environment Canada, the British environment ministry, and scientists from France, Germany, and Portugal. This was the International Consortium for Atmospheric Research on Transport and Transformation, more usefully known as ICARTT. There were some security hiccups related to sensitivities about high-flying foreign aircraft penetrating national airspaces, particularly on the part of the ever-prickly French, but to no one's surprise, the best scientific guesses were amply and miserably confirmed; high-altitude solar radiation was turning pollutants into lung-irritating ozone. Yes, Asian pollution was darkening the prospects for Californians and Washingtonians; but yes, also, U.S. pollution was being sucked into the westerlies and the jet stream, to be deposited in Europe three to five days later—those Beltway commuters were indeed affecting Britain. One of the British scientists involved, Alastair Lewis of the University of York, said gloomily that "we used to think air pollution was a local problem. Now we realize some pollutants, particularly ozone, are global. It is literally arriving here on the wind." Environment Canada's Richard Leaitch, for his part, was concentrating on how clouds process trace gases and particulate matter, but did confirm that pollutants from the United States were tracking northwest to the Maritime Provinces—the tailpipe didn't end in Maritime Canada, but it did leak substantially there.

ICARTT was the largest, but not the only, study of wind-borne pollution being carried out by atmospheric scientists in the early years of the millennium. Alarming data from all around the globe on aerosols' damaging effects on regional and global climate kicked atmospheric scientists into high gear, and by 2004 a bewildering variety of studies with impenetrable acronyms were being conducted. They variously measured ozone concentrations; sodium dioxide, carbon dioxide, and formaldehyde emissions; the worldwide spread of carbon monoxide pollution; and the global distribution of man-made and natural aerosols.

Main conclusions from all this frenetic activity? The good news was that stringent air quality controls in Europe had decreased sulfur pollution substantially. But that was pretty much it for good news, at least as reported. Even sulfur dioxide hadn't decreased globally, because a wash of pollution from Asia was more than compensating for the decrease in Europe. For the rest . . . global winds carrying ozone and carbon monoxide (CO) were jeopardizing agricultural and natural ecosystems worldwide, and having a strong impact on climate. All the studies recognized what was already obvious, that Asian pollutants were beginning to surpass those from North America, a trend that would only continue and accelerate.12 The increasing concentration of carbon monoxide in the atmosphere worldwide was particularly worrying. The importance of megacities, defined as cities with more than ten million inhabitants, was recognized as a new and critical source of pollutants, especially from burning fuels—by 2001 there were seventeen megacities worldwide. And a final point: Pollution from elsewhere was making local conditions worse, pretty well everywhere.13

Well, they "knew" all this before. But now they know it for sure.

II

In no aspect of atmospheric sciences, of the study of winds and the air, is the discussion more heated than on the topic of the greenhouse effect and the growing presence in the air of carbon dioxide. On no other topic are the doomsayers more strident, and the doom they foresee more self-evident; and on no other topic is the cheery optimism of the naysayers more chilling. Here are two utterly typical quotes from my notebooks: "If humanity indeed adds another 200 to 600 parts per million to atmospheric carbon [which it is in train to do], all kinds of terrible