BeijingAirblog.com

One hopeful piece of news is that ‘yellow-label vehicles’ are being phased out within the 5th ringroad since 1 Jan 2009. Those are vehicles that not meet the EURO I standard (current standard for new cars in Beijing is EURO IV) and you may be surprised to hear that there are (or were) 353,800 of them!! That is about 10% of the number of vehicles in Beijing, but they are estimated to produce 50% of the air pollution caused by traffic. Yes, those smoky tricycles and pre-war trucks who you love to be taken over by on your bike- they will become a thing of the past, by giving their owners a subsidy of 25,000 rmb to take them off the road forever. This is a great idea, and maybe the lower average API for January (82: see post below) is already a first result of this, let’s be optimistic.

On the other hand we shouldn’t be too optimistic, because the authorities realise the good results of 2008 will not be duplicated easily in 2009: we had 274 ‘blue sky days’ (API < 101) in 2008 but the target for 2009 is only 260… the battle continues.

Looking at the graph below, we can see the daily API values for Beijing in 2008 in blue, and a black trend line based on a moving average over 10 days. The first half of the year was similar to what we have seen over the past years, with an average of around 100, with severe peaks above that. However, from June the trend was downwards, reflecting the success of the efforts for clean air during the Olympic Games. The trendline even dipped under the 50 line, which is considered acceptable air quality, around mid-August.

Unfortunately the trend since August has been upwards again, as a result of lifting the temporary restrictions (traffic, industry). Let’s look at the monthly averages:

• August: 56
• September: 57
• October: 75
• November: 80
• December: 98
• January: 82
• February: 90 (first 6 days)

So despite the relatively good air of the summer of 2008, December seemed back to normal (read: very unhealthy). The yearly average API for 2008 stood at 87, which is certainly significantly better than the values around 100 we have been seeing over the last few years.

Of course this is all based on officially reported data. The issue of their reliability remains; as we have discussed last year, there is something strange about the absence of API values of 101 and 102, which statistically is extremely unlikely.

Of course this is related to the concept of ’blue sky days’ which are counted as having an API of 100 or less, and which are an important policy performance indicator. So imagine the pressure on man and machine when the value comes out as 101 or 102.. It Just Does Not Happen, and some things never change.

On 20 Sep the Olympic/Paralympic traffic restrictions (odd/even) were lifted, and then something remarkable happened: people started to talk about how nice it had been with less cars on the roads, and according to a Greenpeace poll (China Daily), even 54% of car owners wanted some sort of restrictions to stay in place. On 11 Oct a 6 month experiment has started that takes 20% of the cars off the roads each weekday. I think the most important result of this could be that most car driving people are now forced to look into alternative means of transport (subway, bus, bike, car pooling..)  and that they realise that those alternatives actually make a lot of sense, and hopefully, use them more often than once a week. Below a graph that shows the API of past months, with those 2 dates.

If we look at monthly averages, keeping in mind that the yearly average has been around 100 over the past years, it is clear that the past months have been exceptional:

• August: 56
• September: 57
• October: 75
• November (incomplete): 88

From the start of 2008 until 17 Nov, we are looking at an average API of 87 which is better than the previous years, but still no reason to celebrate. We are still often having bad days with API of over 100 which is by all standards unhealthy.

Earlier this month i attended a clean air conference in Beijing, organised by Tsinghua University with participants from MEP and USA-EPA. I was quite impressed to hear about how they have been working years in advance on a master plan to limit the air pollution during the Olympics. It all came down to a ‘regional approach’, in which the surrounding provinces were involved in the efforts, because it has been proven that a large portion of the fine dust, and other pollutants, does not originate in Beijing. The provincial officials seems a bit to triumphant; but i have to give them the credit that the relatively-clean air Olympics were more than just a bit of luck- let’s hope that the lessons learnt will be kept into practice.

The Associated Press has a fancy site on the Olympic air quality; with daily measurements at the main stadium. BBC also continues to publish a daily picture and measurement, and the official numbers can be found at MEP as always. Let’s see what they got for the last 3 days (PM10 in micrograms/m3):

7 Aug: AP=349, BBC=191, MEP=140
8 Aug: AP=345, BBC=156, MEP=138
9 Aug: AP=163, BBC=110, MEP=106

If you asked me which numbers are correct, my answer would be that we don’t know; in fact they could all three be correct, reflecting the different locations and ways of measurement (average of stations vs one spot, 24hr average vs 10min or couple of hours). The fact is that all of these numbers are reason to worry for people who live in Beijing (WHO guideline for annual average=20). If you are interested in seeing more pictures of haze in Beijing, have a look at the Asia Society project which goes back about a year.

The IOC president has spoken; the air is OK (for the athletes), so “let the games begin”.

Definition of haze on Wikipedia: Haze is traditionally an atmospheric phenomenon where dust, smoke and other dry particles obscure the clarity of the sky.

This scientific model predicts a sharp drop in PM10 around noon, so we might get a blue sky afternoon; that would be nice. Forecasts for Saturday is around 100 micrograms/m3, and Sunday below 50 in the afternoon.

The IOC medical official says Beijing is meeting the WHO air quality standards “in many aspects“, and goes on:

“I am sure and confident that the air quality will not pose any major problem to the athletes and visitors…The WHO standards are not intended for temporary visitors… They are for permanent residents”

So all  you athletes, officials, visitors, you don’t have to worry, the air will be good enough for you. And the permanent residents, well, sorry, that’s not the responsibility of the IOC. Thank you IOC for your contribution to China.

In fact i don’t really care what the air quality will be like in the next few weeks; i rather worry about the next few years, and my only hope is that the authorities will be somehow convinced/pressured to give a higher priority to improving air quality. Stop subsidizing petrol, even if it doubles the price at the pump. Enforce dust filters on industrial installations across the country. Preventing higher inflation is not a long-term vision.

Some US athletes got a bit confused getting a scolding from USOC officials because they stepped off the plane wearing face masks, which they had been given a while ago by the USOC itself… Welcome to the circus.

Vance has some interesting comparisons with previous Olympic cities:

• Los Angeles 1984: although no precise data is available, based on several reasonable assumptions he concludes Beijing’s average official PM10 since 20 July has been 60% higher than the average during the LA games (111 vs 68 micrograms/m3)
• Atlanta 1996: average PM10 during the Atlanta games was 31 micrograms/m3; our average in Beijing since 20 July is 250% higher. The worst day in Atlanta had 51 micrograms/m3, the official PM10 for 6 Aug is 120 micrograms/m3 (API of 85).

The case is closed, let’s enjoy the games and hope we’ll continue to see real improvement in the air quality when the circus leaves town, we need it.

Today for the first time i saw a hybrid taxi in Beijing, a Chery A5, and i took the picture below. It seems there have been 50 such hybrid taxis in Beijing since 21 June; that is great news. 40 BSG models which increase fuel efficiency by 10-15% and 10 ISG models, with a 25-30% improvement. Let’s hope this pilot project goes well and we’ll see more of these hybrids soon.

After yesterday’s heavy smog, we saw a gradual improvement over the morning, helped by a good breeze, although from the South, which cleared up the sky, with a nice sunset as the result. BBC reported a PM10 of 104 micrograms/m3 at noon (that is an API of 77; an official blue sky day). The official API for the preceding 24hr was 88, which seems very low for the ‘haze’ we saw yesterday. The spectacular drop in PM10 today is well illustrated by the screenshot below, taken from the website of the Flemish Institute for Technology, one of the partners of the AMFIC project mentioned below. Unfortunately the site is in Dutch only. According to their model, PM10 will go from 130 to 75 tomorrow, and on Thursdayit will be around 100 micrograms/m3. More on this model later.

The current weather forecast has a 40% chance for rain on Thursday 7 Aug, hopefully it will rain to bring the PM10 further down.

Today 4 August BBC reports a PM10 of 292 micrograms/m3, the highest value since it began its daily measurements on 9 July 2008 (click on 2 or go back in time until you find 4 Aug), that translates in an API of 171, what the authorities regarded as ‘unhealthy’ a while ago - they have replaced this now with some unuseful numbers, which don’t explain anything, do they? I am very curious what the official API will be tomorrow at noon; i guess they are under enormous pressure to keep it under 100 (PM10 of 150 micrograms/m3) only 4 days before the Olympics start.

Note: BBC does recognise that there is a ‘20% or so’ error margin on its PM10 measurements, and some people do even think it is less reliable than that. But at 3 times the WHO guideline of 50 micrograms/m3, that seems a minor issue to me.

Fortunately it will rain, but maybe not as much as we hoped. Check out the forecast of Weather Underground below; the first one is of 4 Aug at noon, the next one evening 8.30pm- at noon it still said rain on Thursday, now it says only 30% chance of rain on Thursday, and none on Wednesday and Friday- in that case we will have a very smoggy Friday 8 Aug (or call it ‘haze’ if you insist). The slight wind from the South does not help either; that is no clean air. Also check out these Wundermaps, amazing stuff!

The AMFIC forecasts for the next days look quite bad as well, but their forecast for Friday is a little better, based on rain on Thursday it seems.

Anyway we can expect some interesting reactions from the authorities (propaganda reflexes), probably in the same line as Vance reported last week.

I found it quite ironic that the Deputy Director of BJEPB urged the public ‘to analyze the data scientifically’ instead of drawing conclusions from the haze. So let’s look for the scientists.

The European Space Agency (ESA) proudly announced on 22 July 2008 that it:

‘installed a High Resolution Air Quality Forecasting System at the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau (EPB) that allows Chinese authorities to monitor the effect these cuts have on street level air quality…Three-day forecasts are posted daily and are accessible on the Beijing Air Quality website www.beijingairquality.cn. The forecasts are high-resolution pollution contour maps that predict levels of nitrogen dioxide, ozone, particles and sulphur dioxide for each of Beijing’s eight districts. Users can choose to view maps of each pollutant separately or to view the total health index with all pollutants combined.’

Unfortunately this site www.beijingairquality.cn is only accessible by username/password; that’s how far the transparancy goes. Without access to this data, it is difficult ‘to analyze them scientifically’.

Fortunately there is another project, supported by the EU, which groups various European research institutes: Air Quality Monitoring and Forecasting In China (AMFIC). These scientists have a model of the emission sources, and combined with weather data, they make predictions for the next 3 days. For example in this forecast of PM10 for Sunday 3 August, you can see that it will get quite bad, over 200 micrograms/m3, not surprising with no rain forecasted on Sat-Sun and temperatures of 33-34 degrees C. They also provide an archive, and i have animated the PM10 around Beijing since 18 July until 4 Aug - you can see that we are heading for some ugly days again, if this model is correct.

And this cartoon by my good friend Nick (click to enlarge)

OK, Xinhua found an IOC official Gilbert Felli who ’said the low visibility doesn’t necessarily mean the air quality is bad’, you can watch the video here (foward to 4:00); he seems to have caught a cough, probably it is that Beijing air. So he is actually saying that with air quality such as the day before (28 July, official API 96) no events would be have to be rescheduled. That official number translates into around 142 microgram/m3; the BBC has an independent measurement for that day of 134 micrograms/m3; that is 168% above the WHO guideline of 50 microgram/m3 (24h short-term exposure). Check out that BBC site, they have daily pictures there, with the PM10 measurement- excellent stuff! As far as i can see, these BBC pictures show an undeniable correlation between haze and PM10. If you happen to know Gilbert Felli, please show this to him. And please also to this Chinese official: “Clouds and haze are not pollution. This kind of weather is a natural phenomenon. It has nothing to do with pollution,” said Du Shaozhong, deputy director of the Beijing municipal bureau of environmental protection. So we had only 63% of humidity in the air (27 July, see Google weather snapshot below) and a PM10 of 269 microgram/m3 (BBC measurement) and this guy tells us the haze has nothing to do with pollution. Today, with a humidity of 80-90% there is no haze, magico!

The BBC still mixes up API and PM10 in this article (i know it is confusing; i did not invent it!); but it is just more easy if they stick to their own PM10 measurements and compare to the WHO standard; that tells us enough. It is clear that the official API numbers for 24-25-26-27 July are suspiciously low, max API 118, while the BBC gets PM10 of over 250 on 3 of those 4 days (yes, 5 times the WHO guideline), that translates into an API of just over 150. Just remember 2 numbers: the WHO guideline of 50 micrograms/m3 (green line in graph), and the limit of 150 micrograms/m3 that the Chinese use to define an acceptable day (’blue sky day’) - what translates into an API of 100 (red line in graph). Chinese officials often refer to API of slightly less than 100 as ‘good’ but actually in their own standard it is only ‘moderate’ (see table upper left).

Above is a graph with the official APIs, with Tianjin and Shijiazhuang (nearby cities) in the background, showing that Beijing doesn’t do better than them despite the traffic restrictions. I didn’t have time to add the BBC measurements; they would have been off this scale (150+) for 24-25-27 July.

The Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau (BJEPB) was a bit in a panic after the horrible weekend, and no rain on Monday, so the declared that extra measures are being considered, closing down more factories in Beijing, Tianjin and other nearby cities, and get 90% of the cars off the road- that would create true logistical challenges, without even a big effect on the pollution levels…

On Tuesday 29th it started raining, causing an immediate drop in API. It has been raining every day since, and the below forecast shows rain on Friday, but the again sun and heat; which will allow the pollution to build up again, if it doesn’t rain for a couple of days. Also the wind is coming in from the South-East, while we need clean air coming from the North.

To conclude, i also insist to mention that the authorities have made many efforts to improve the environment of Beijing as they had promised the IOC many years ago; Greenpeace has released an evaluation report earlier this week which is quite positive in fact: Beijing has done better than Athens, but not as good as Sydney. Among the positive points are: increase in renewable energy, EURO IV emission standards, new subway lines etc. Regarding air pollution, there has been progress in the reduction of SO2, CO, NO2, but PM10 remains a concern.