Pollution on the move (Image: Strdel/AFP/Getty Images)

ASIAN pollution is a global problem. Millions of tonnes of soot, sulphur dioxide and other pollutants are fast-tracked into the stratosphere each year by the summer monsoon.

“The monsoon is one of the most powerful atmospheric circulation systems on the planet, and it happens to form right over a heavily polluted region,” says William Randel of the US National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.

The monsoon is extremely powerful, and it happens to form right over a heavily polluted region

The stratosphere begins about 12 kilometres up, above the troposphere where …