In 2020, Taiwan's Taichung began tracking haze for 3 years; by 2022, industrial solvents drove 57% of the chemistry behind organic haze, showing why cleaner air did not always mean clearer skies

A cleaner atmosphere does not always look like one. In Taiwan, air quality has improved over the past decade, yet the hazy, milky-white skies that blur mountains and city skylines have remained a familiar sight in many places.

That contrast led a research team at National Taiwan University to take a closer look at what was actually floating in the air over Taichung, a mixed urban-industrial region in central Taiwan.