BeijingAirblog.com

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)