ABSTRACT
Although the atmosphere affects the fate of pollutants via various sink processes, it experiences significant short-or long-term pollution-induced changes. These may be local, regional, or global in scale, depending on such factors as sources, longrange transport, movement into the stratosphere, and accumulation of long-lived pollutants. Atmospheric effects may include changes in (1) visibility, (2) urban climate, (3) quantity and frequency of rainfall and associated meteorological phenomena, (4) atmospheric deposition, (5) stratospheric ozone (O3) depletion, and (6) global climate change. The significance of these effects may be slight (visibility impairment) to potentially very serious (stratospheric O3 depletion and changes in climate).
