Highest PM10 since 9 July (BBC)
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.
August 5th, 2008 at 3:40 am
The Australian ABC (Govt owned Broadcaster) has just started these web pages devoted to Beijing, including a Beijing Smog Watch.
http://www.abc.net.au/olympics/
If you scroll down there are two articles re air quality;
Beijing’s smog returns,
and
Coates dismisses Beijing pollution concerns.
Mr John Coates is Australia’s top Olympic official.
Scrolling down further you can click on Beijing Smog Watch to see a series of 5 daily photos dated (left to right) 31 July, 30, 29, 25, 24.
The photo of the Olympic Village was taken yesterday 4 Aug at 8.58am
It will be interesting to see if the ABC keeps this series going, I am sure Chinese diplomats here will be quietly “making representations” that the series should be pulled.
PS: I could not get the 5 smog watch photos to work in Internet Explorer but Firefox worked fine. I have saved them all by screen dumps.
August 5th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
ok, so, it gonna be smoggy on 8/8/08?
i wish everyone can enjoy the Olympics, but it seems that not everyone wants to enjoy..
i don’t understand, why PM10 reading can increase so sharply within a short period of time.
Is there a possibility that the BBC’s “Hand Held device” took other particulates into account, or amount particulates do increase dramatically within a short period of time?
Thank you, Tom