BeijingAirblog.com

4 days into the traffic restrictions, today is even worse than yesterday, with an API of 113 for 24 July- this is equivalent to a PM10 value of about 175 micrograms/m3. Let’s go back to the World Health Organisation (WHO) Air Quality Guidelines of 2005  (AQG) to understand this number. For PM10 they suggest on page 10:

• annual mean: 20 micrograms/m3
• 24-hour mean: 50 micrograms/m3

The 24-hour average from 23 July noon to 24 July noon in Beijing was 175 micrograms/m3, that is 250% higher than the WHO guideline. The Chinese authorities are saying that level 2 (API up to 100 = PM10 of 150 micrograms/m3) is safe for athletic competition (’blue sky day’). The WHO guideline for short exposure is a PM10 of 50 micrograms/m3, which corresponds to an API of 50. We have only had 2 days like that in July until now: 6 and 15 July.

On page 13 of the WHO document it says what short exposure to an API of 100 does to you:

Therefore, a PM10 concentration of 150 μg/m3 would be expected to translate into roughly a 5% increase in daily mortality, an impact that would be of significant concern, and one for which immediate mitigation actions would be recommended. 

The annual average API in Beijing is around 100 = PM10 of 150 micrograms/m3, which is 650% higher than the WHO guideline for long-term exposure. The WHO’s first ‘interim target’ for long-time exposure starts at 70 micrograms/m3 (API of 60) so no further comment on this.

Also check out this recent comment by Dr. George D. Thurston, Professor at the NYU School of Medicine:

…All in all, anything above Chinese API=50 is very unhealthy. Even if it is at API=50, that is still more than double New York City usual levels, so that is not acceptable either. They really need to get the API down to 25 or below to call the air acceptable for Olympic competition. It seems only strong (clean) winds from the North can provide lowered concentrations, and this just doesn’t happen often enough in Beijing.

The Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau is providing daily reports of SO2, PM10, NO2 levels on a special section of their website, even in English, screenshot below. It seems these numbers are already converted to the API scale, so that makes it quite confusing; actual values in micrograms/m3 are higher for the 3 pollutants, as described here.

Also interesting to see how the interpretations of the API levels has shifted a bit (upper left box on the above screenshot, compared to the same 2007 document):

1 = API 0-50 = excellent (old) => good (new)
2 = API 51-100 = good => moderate
3A = API 101-150 = slightly polluted => unhealthy for sensitive groups
3B = API 151-200 = light polluted => unhealthy
4A = API 201-250 = moderate polluted => very unhealthy
4B = API 251-300 = moderate-heavy polluted => hazardous

Especially the re-classification of ‘light polluted’ to ‘unhealthy’ is remarkable; the new classification is in fact very similar to the US-EPA.

As reported below, the traffic measures started on 20 July, so let’s have a look at the air quality since then. As you can see on the below graph, the API values since 20 July have gone up each day since 20 July (blue line is for Beijing). This is very unfortunate, but it shows that the traffic reductions have only a limited effect on the air quality, as discussed in the previous post. Of course we can be sure that without the reductions, the pollution would have been even worse; but taking half of the cars off the road does not solve the problem.

The pink dotted line is for Tianjin, a city 150km East from Beijing, where no traffic restrictions have been imposed as far as i know. We see that the trend is very similar, and actually the values for Beijing and Tianjin are also quite close, with Tianjin being generally a little better than Beijing, except for the last few days, where the upward trend is more strong in Tianjin, suggesting that the traffic restrictions in Beijing do help to keep the values in Beijing down, despite the upward trend- this is speculation of course. The experiment last year with 4 days of similar traffic restrictions in Beijing were not a success either, as shown in this post. It simply has not rained for a couple of days.

In the mean time the BeijingAirBlog is celebrating its 10,000th visitor, mainly due to a boost from referrals from CNN over the last couple of days, but i did not manage to find the link on their site.

The Wall Street Journal has a nice graph of something i have been pointing out since November 2007, and when they put this in front of Chinese officials, the spokesman of Beijing-EPB claimed it shows ‘the ability of government measures to head off short-term spikes in pollution’…

Yesterday the reduced traffic measures kicked in, and i found myself in a traffic jam on the second ringroad on a Sunday around noon, with supposedly 30% less cars on the road, but 1 of the 3 lanes left empty because of its ‘Olympic’ status. The main aim here is to get the athletes and spectators to the venues on time it seems.

I tend to agree with professor Rahn (on this wired.com article), who says that these traffic measures will have very limited effects on the air quality (less than 10%): the main actor on the air pollution stage is the weather. On cloud seeding, he adds:

“They cannot depend on weather modification. Nature is bigger and stronger than the Chinese people and rockets,” Rahn said. “The west has known this for 50 years but China is in the stage of development where they think science and technology can do everything.”

So my best bet is still: China will move heaven and earth to make it rain on 7 August, and get a clear sky when the camera’s start rolling on 8 August and the opening ceremony. But in fact the camera’s are already rolling, and it is just impossible to avoid some bad (and very bad) days during the following 6 weeks. The authorities have been working hard on reducing the sources of the worst air pollution, but as an environmental problem, it takes more than a local effort to change the trend, and let’s hope the efforts will not be abandoned after the Games are over and the cameras stop rolling.

The weather has been quite wet recently in Beijing, and it’s hard to tell if that fog is just humidity or smog… The average API over the first 15 days of July is only 73, well below the average value of 100, so it seems our daily portion of rain, and a bit of wind, clears the air quite well. We had the same monthly average in February which was an exceptionally clear month (see below).

However, as i have reported on many occasions before, the correctness of official data from the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau, and the Ministry of Environmental Protection, may be questioned (in addition to the dubious changes in monitoring stations). BBC measured PM10 values last week of more than double the officially reported values as reported in this article, but in their enthusiasm they compared the reported API directly with their measurements of PM10 (microgram per cubic meter). API and PM10 are not the same as i explain here. So in fact the reported values are up to 50% higher than shown in their graph, and much closer to their own measurements. By coincidence this makes it look more spectacular of course… For example the API value of 8 July is 98, which corresponds to a PM10 of slightly less than 150, but in the BBC graph it is shown as 98 on the PM10 scale.

In addition, they did not mention how/where these measurements where made, which makes it rather a scientifically unsound claim if you ask me. Although i do not doubt that the actual levels could be much higher than officially reported, i wonder if a sample measurement of a presumably handheld device on one spot can give a value truly representing the city situation. I am sure more journalists will be making their own measurements, which can give correct values for the air at a particular place at a particular time, but should not be compared to the officially reported API.

Beijing has announced special traffic measures to curb emissions during the Olympics, of which the most important ones are:

• From July 20 to September 20, Beijing-registered automobiles will hit the roads on an alternate-day basis. That is to say, vehicles with license plates ending in odd numbers will be banned from the roads on even-numbered calendar days, and those with plates ending in even numbers will be banned from the roads on odd-numbered days.
• From July 20 to September 20, vehicles carrying dirt or rubble are not allowed to enter the roads of the city.

Unfortunately, the main polluters (those old and not-even-so-old trucks with EURO II or less) will only be banned during the daytime; so the pollution will still peak at night, as we are used to. Keep those air purifiers running in the bedroom.

• Cargo traffic is banned within the Sixth Ring Road between 6:00 and 24:00.
• Tractors, low-speed trucks and three-wheel automobiles are not allowed to run on the roads within the Sixth Ring Road between 6:00 and 24:00 and within the Fifth Ring Road between 0:00 and 6:00. [does this mean no tractors, three-wheelers within the fifth ring road at any time?]

From the statistics below, it seems that the other efforts to curb emissions from industrial sources implemented earlier this year, have not had much effect yet. Let’s just hope for rain, and lots of it, like today, that cleans up the air as nothing else does.

To continue the post below; the average for May went up to 142 due to some very bad days at the end of the month, and the average of June was 90, which is a bit better than the yearly average of around 100 that we have seen over the last few years. The average year-to-date (185 days of this year) is again 100, the magic number, showing that the situation has not improved, and that the average value remains within the limit of the Blue Sky days (API smaller or equal to 100).

The MEP database seems to have 2 entries for 1 June 2008, and no entry for 4 June 2008 (i will use the value of BJEPB: 57); strange that they don’t fix things like this, or is really nobody looking at these data?

Today 27 May 2008 Beijing’s API is 463, the worst of this year so far.

People often ask me if i think the situation is getting any better, but unfortunately i don’t think it is. Let’s look at the numbers for this year, keeping in mind that the yearly average API over the last years was nearly constant, around 100.

Average API jan-may 2008: 99.5 (so not better or worse than previous years)
Average API jan 2008: 83
Average API feb 2008: 73
Average API mar 2008: 109
Average API apr 2008: 103
Average API may 2008: 131 (until 27th)

So as described below, the months of January and February gave us some hope that the situation was improving, but April and May are showing us that’s too optimistic.

I used to collect the daily API values from the MEP/SEPA website, but it seems their list function at the bottom of the page is not working anymore, what a pity (or can somebody tell me what i am doing wrong?). So i had to go to the Beijing EPB website and manually retrieve all daily values… below a sample of today, showing several stations went off the scale.

Apologies for not posting recently and not answering comments/questions, busy here with newborn baby!

Over the last 3 months it has been tempting to think that the air quality in Beijing was actually improving since the start of the year, but the last weeks have been as bad as we are used to. The graph below shows the daily API values in blue, with a black trend line of 10-day moving average, which stays below the 100 (yearly average) for roughly the first 10 weeks of 2008. 71 so-called ‘blue sky days’ out of 98; that is 72% which is a bit higher than the 67% of last year. A stroke of good luck, plus the effect of less industrial activity around Lunar New Year? On 18 March the first sand storm hit Beijing, and the API went up to 304.

You can see in this graph that February was an exceptionally good month, with an average API of only 73, well below the yearly average of 100. This article reports that 10 key polluting factories in Beijing, Hebei and Tianjin have already been closed to improve the air quality ahead of the Olympic games, and the provinces of Shandong, Shanxi and Inner Mongolia are also being involved in the efforts.

Before we get to optimistic, let’s remember the monitoring station shift described on this blog before, which will make it easier to get lower API values without actually getting better air quality. BOCOG environmental director responded to this story with the statement that the stations ‘were not moved’, but as we have demonstrated, the list of 27 stations simply has changed. In fact it is not so complicated for anyone who wishes to see for themselves; an effort this person obviously did not make. According to China Daily, 66% of Beijingers recently polled about the air quality, think it has improved. Probably the poll took place in February, a stroke of luck.

Beijing is seeing an unusually long series of ‘blue sky days’, today is the 8th one in a row (SEPA API 21-28 Jan), but you may have noticed the air smells of sulphur more than usual. Indeed for the last 4 days (25-28 Jan) SEPA is reporting SO2 as the main pollutant. Strange after China Daily (17 Nov 2007) reported the end of coal heating in Beijing, and since EURO 4 fuel standards were introduced from the start of this year.

The New York Times reports that the USA olympic team will bring up to 1000 air pollution face masks to Beijing, and it seems this is not the first time:

United States triathletes wore masks in China last September, but removed them before competing. They stepped off the bus looking like a group of incredibly fit surgeons or, as one triathlete put it, a gathering of Darth Vaders.

The team’s lead exercise physiologist mr Wilber has a lot of interesting things to say,

He is also testing possible Olympians to see if they qualify for an International Olympic Committee exemption to use an asthma inhaler. And, in what may be a controversial recommendation, Mr. Wilber is urging all the athletes to wear specially designed masks over their noses and mouths from the minute they step foot in Beijing until they begin competing…[he] has traveled to Beijing three times to measure the pollution at each Olympic site. Along the way, he has bumped into some of his colleagues, all stealthily measuring the same air. He said none of them wanted to rely on the statistics provided by Chinese officials. Mr. Wilber said his numbers were disturbingly high, with levels of certain pollutants “significantly higher” than they were at the 2004 Athens Games and at the 1984 Los Angeles Games. [my emphasis, Tom]

And some star athletes might simply not show up:

The marathon world-record holder Haile Gebrselassie, who has allergies, and the world’s No. 1 women’s tennis player, Justine Henin, who has asthma, have expressed reservations about competing in the Olympics for fear that pollution will exacerbate their breathing problems.

Today’s API is 66 only, much lower than the last 3 days, probably because of the snow that cleared out the air last night. Interesting to note however that the main polluting substance was not PM10 (fine dust) as it is 99% of the time, but SO2 (sulphur dioxide) first time this year, the main cause of acid rain as far as i know, and emitted by burning not-so-clean fossil fuels (coal and petroleum products). 

This is also a reminder that although Beijing’s main problem is PM10, the other common pollutants (SO2, NOx, CO,O3) are probably also at alarming levels, but just not as much in view as the PM10 because that is the worst problem. For example i wouldn’t know where to find daily figures of SO2 measurements; it seems they are not published, only the general API is available.

Another interesting observation from today’s list of major Chinese cities; about half of the cities are reporting SO2 as main pollutant (the other half reports PM10 as usual). This has most probably something to do with the cold weather and the need to burn more fossil fuels for heating, and their high sulphur content.