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)

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.