Dirt and grime alone are not responsible for Los Angeles' notorious, eye-stinging smog. The real villain is Southern California's much-touted sunshine, reports the Stanford Research Institute after a seven-year study.
In the stagnant air over the mountain-hemmed area, ordinarily harmless chemicals rise from factory chimneys, auto exhausts, backyard incinerators at the rate of 3,100 tons a day. Under strong sunshine, the chemicals react with one another and with molecules of ozone (O<sub>3</sub>) to form a low-hanging, acrid pall, irritating to humans and damaging to crops.
Stanford's researchers have yet to discover exactly how ozone is formed. But they believe that it results from...
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