Hazy numbers - independent and official
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”.
August 11th, 2008 at 4:19 am
The WHO air quality guideline for annual average PM10 = 20 µg/m3 (not 50). 50 is de guideline for daily average concentrations.
The WHO also uses “Interim Targets”. More info : http://whqlibdoc.who.int/hq/2006/WHO_SDE_PHE_OEH_06.02_eng.pdf
It seems that in Beijing daily mean PM10 concentrations lower than 150 µg/m3 are classified als “healty’… In Belgium, traffic measures (introduction of speed limits on high ways, 120->90 km/h) are introduced when daily mean PM10 concentrations are higher than … 70 µg/m3.
September 1st, 2008 at 5:31 pm
I look forward to the first after-Olympics update to find out how the air quality has evolved after the world stopped watching… And I wonder what the average Chinese feels in case the air quality would have gotten worse again.
Very nice Blog, not surprisingly “Made in China, by a Belgian”
regards,
Greg.