With winter on the way, open windows and breezes blowing in and out are not on most Minnesotans' minds but local researchers said city and state agencies should be paying attention to the issue and how it intersects with under-the-radar air pollutants when the weather is hot.

A new study from the University of Minnesota and partner schools found urban air pollution, caused by volatile organic compounds, increases significantly during the summer.

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Dylan Millet, professor of atmospheric chemistry at the University of Minnesota and the study's co-author, said there has been an emphasis on transportation sources in cutting down urban smog but pointed out volatile organic compounds from things like personal care and cleaning products and paints are prominent, too.

"Things that are emitted indoors can get outdoors and the degree to which that happens depends on things like, 'Are the windows open? What's the sort of air exchange rate between the indoor and the outdoor?'" Millet explained.

When the calendar flips to summer and the compounds find their way outside, the air pollutants stemming from product usage are intensified because they are temperature sensitive. The study's authors said current air quality models don’t account for these temperature effects, meaning municipal and state governments could be missing key information in their decision-making.

Millet noted they found vegetation plays a role.

"It turns out that certain types of trees that can emit reactive volatile organic compounds that by themselves wouldn't really be an issue, but because they then interact with all the pollutants that humans emit, they can actually accentuate some of the pollution," Millet pointed out.

In compiling the findings, the researchers collected data from a cellular tower in Long Island, New York. They used a method combining wind and chemical measurements to directly determine emission rates for a wide variety of pollutants. Millet added the next step is to figure out how the readings might play out for different locations across an urban center and between different cities.