BeijingAirblog.com

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.

From the graph below, based on the official MEP numbers, we can see that the traffic restrictions have not been very successful in Beijing;  the air pollution has only increased since the restrictions started on 20 July, and for the last 4 days has been above the 100 level which Beijing regards as the acceptable limit (’blue sky day’, well above WHO guidelines as mentioned previously). I have also added the API for Tianjin (150km to the East) and Shijiazhuang (300km to the South), which show roughly the same trends over the last weeks, and Beijing has not been able to do better than them, despite the restrictions. On 20 July the 3 cities started from similar values, but for the last 4 days Beijing has been worse than its neighbours.

Google Weather shows it is currently raining in Beijing ; well i wished it was, but it is not (Sunday evening 27 July 9pm local time). Also in their forecast the rains will start on Tuesday- our Chinese mobile phone says it will rain tomorrow. Let’s see.

This weekend the air was horrible and it would not surprise me if independent measurements would show higher values than reported. If you will be visiting the Games and stay close to the sport venues, you may wonder where all that pollution comes from because they plan to make the central grounds ‘emission free’ with about 500 special vehicles (electric, hybrid, fuell cell). Wouldn’t it be nice to have more of those everywhere, all the time?

The Wall Street Journal has been looking at Beijing air pollution for a while, and now they have a Beijing Air Quality Widget on their site, click on the Detailed View for a very fancy look into the API data since 2005 (unfortunately their latest value is stuck at 25 July it seems), and as one comment remarks, it would be helpful to put the current measurement for New York up there to compare for example. CNN has a video report on Beijing air dated 21 July.

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?