Past paper questions: Los Angeles

1. a) i) Atmospheric pollution from traffic and industry may be worse in places with a dry climate as firstly, with no rain the pollutants are more likely to remain trapped near the surface layer of air, especially in inversion of temperatures. When an inversion of temperature occurs this is when a layer of hot air traps a layer of cool air below, not allowing the air below the inversion layer to move, trapping the pollutants. Secondly, hot climates cause air to rise, lowering the air pressure and density - trapping layers of pollutants in the air.
ii) Pollution could be worse in less developed countries as there is less management for car pollution, and it is more difficult in developing countries as they have little money to spend on protecting the environment without adding to production costs, and so whilst in LA it would be possible to implement mandatory use of catalytic converters it would be far too expensive to be viable