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Southern California just saw its longest streak of bad air in decades
- j0e1 8y agoLooking outside of my window, I've seen the haze/fog/smog, but can't make out if it's because of polluted air or if it's just condensation- the kind you'd expect to see in high altitudes.
- tomatsu 8y agoDevices for measuring the concentration of particulates (PM10, PM2.5, and maybe PM1.0), TVOC (total volatile organic compounds), and HCHO (formaldehyde) are fairly affordable nowadays. You could get one of those. The air quality indoors is usually even worse than the air outside if you aren't using some filtration system. New-ish buildings release formaldehyde, laser printers release particulates and ozone, 3d printers release VOCs and particulates, and there is lots of dust generated by inhabitants and their pets. Sadly, the Trump administration did a rollback of emission and fuel efficiency standards. It's a big step in the wrong direction. Personally, I'd even ban combustion engines within city limits. It's completely insane that we poison the air we breathe 24/7.
- minimaxir 8y agoA neat perk of iOS/watchOS 12 is that it now supports Air Quality in the Weather app/Siri, which has been very useful over the past few days!
- saagarjha 8y agoI think this may have been released earlier, since I think I remember this as being in iOS 11.
- xoa 8y agoAFAIK an AQI feature was actually first introduced in iOS 10, but only for a very limited set of cities/geographic areas (only ones I heard named directly were in China, which of course is both a big market and has had horrendous air quality issues they've had to grapple with). I heard it briefly vanished in iOS 11.0 actually before being reintroduced in a point update. I never had cause to use it myself back then. Presumably in iOS 12 the feature is both more refined and Apple has also just plain worked to get more access to the necessary data streams and integrate them. From a brief glance around at some weather related APIs I've played with before it doesn't seem like AQI data, particularly sufficiently granular, has the kind of global support that is simply universal for other more common measures. I guess as knowledge of the health effects of small PM pollution and such start to become more widely known by the public, combined with worsening climate making it more common/worse in new areas we'll see sensors and data streams for that improve worldwide, at least in urban areas.
- gascan 8y agoDang, would be nice if Android had more AQI built in. The 3rd party apps are not exactly rock solid.
- palcu 8y agoI found the Plume app to have good information and a nice UI.
- ptx 8y agoMy Huawei phone shows AQI in the weather app (don't know if it's Google's or Huawei's app) but only for some cities – it shows up for Beijing and Shanghai but not Paris or Athens.
- seanmcdirmid 8y agoAQI is essential to know in China, so the market adapts.
- r00fus 8y agoWow - Does AQ show up on the complication?
- minimaxir 8y agoNope; only on the new Series 4 exclusive watchface.
- another-cuppa 8y agoWhy is it useful? What do you do about it?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Jtsummers 8y agoIt can be useful if you need to make a decision on how active to be outside. It’s usually not a good idea to be running/cycling (for fitness) or other similar activities outside with very poor air quality.
- another-cuppa 8y agoSo if the air quality is bad, you'll drive. I see, very useful.
- Jtsummers 8y agoOr not run outside. Or if I cycle, not press hard.
- minimaxir 8y agoA few days ago it smelled and looked like smoke in San Francisco. A “Hey Siri, air quality” into the Watch returned “Unhealthy.”
- another-cuppa 8y agoSo you don't trust your own eyes and nose and need "Siri" to confirm it for you?
- minimaxir 8y agoI’m not a climatologist.
- Panino 8y ago> Joseph Lyou, a South Coast air quality board member who heads the Coalition for Clean Air, said he’s concerned that although the intensity of Southern California’s air pollution has dropped, its longevity is increasing. If air quality becomes more consistently bad then maybe wearing a mask, like in some Asian countries, will become more socially acceptable. Sometimes I'd like to wear one but I'm scared people would treat me like I have TB or ebola. And even on clear days, the air is still bad next to busy roads.
- gascan 8y agoMasks help with particulate, which I think is Asia's core problem (from all the coal). But most bad-air US cities struggle with ozone, and I don't think masks help with that.
- Panino 8y agoWhere I live has elevated levels of both thanks to wildfires. It was so bad last summer that at one point, I could barely see the house across the street. Something's got to give.
- irrational 8y agoHave you considered moving? There are lots of places that don't have these kinds of air problems.
- akoncius 8y agobut weather is so nice here /s
- Reedx 8y agoWould just note that it depends on the mask. They often have a large amount of leakage, and can give a false sense of security. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-airpollution-masks/face-masks-available-to-consumers-may-be-ineffective-against-air-pollution-idUSKBN1I426I https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-airpollution-masks...
- refurb 8y agoLos Angeles is unfortunate that due to the surrounding geography, thermal inversions are common where air close to the surface is trapped and doesn't circulate. That amplifies the air quality problems compared to say SF where the off-shore breeze keeps the air relatively clean.
- astrodust 8y agoA friend from Los Angeles used to say "I don't trust air I can't see."
- bsder 8y agoThis is relatively straightforward to solve. You take the existing CA gas tax and have it increase a couple of pennies every single month indefinitely. Gasoline in California is still about 1/2 the price in Europe. By making the tax small and gradual, everybody can PLAN around the fact that gas is going up instead of the dislocation from when gasoline prices whipsaw. The problem is that we have zero political will to do this. People will attack the gas tax instead of attacking the lack of transportation options.
- swingline-747 8y agoThat won't work in the real world, it will just tax the poorest people and accomplish nothing tangible. There's very inelastic demand for travel by car in LA because everything is so spread out, making other forms of transport unworkably moot. People have to work and live, so they're just going to hate you for making their lives harder while they have no workable options. Heck, the auto industry even had the 19th/20th c. era local commuter trains ripped up so they wouldn't compete with the automobile.
- neuronexmachina 8y agoYeah, while I agree with part of the premise of a gas tax, it's unfortunately also a regressive tax (hits lower-income people proportionally harder).
- 8y ago
- lwb 8y agoIsn't Seattle supposed to be way worse?
- BookmarkSaver 8y agoSeattle's was due to fires in surrounding regions. For whatever reason, smoke just accumulates in the Sound and lingers in the city, even for fires up in Canada. In LA, typically unless there is a fire in the immediate proximity, smoke doesn't really affect it that much. This article seems to be mostly about smog and ozone, rather than temporary air quality issues that don't really have a solution. But yes, from what I've read, for a couple weeks last month, Seattle had the worst air quality in the world. And if you were here, you'd believe it.
- ed_balls 8y agoRain also helps with reducing the air pollution
- amscanne 8y ago> For whatever reason, smoke just accumulates in the Sound and lingers in the city, even for fires up in Canada. I don't think this is true. You could see maps, and Seattle and the sound happened to be in the path of the smoke at times. But things were also bad east of the Cascades, in various parts of B.C. etc. The smoke doesn't have a particular tendency to linger in Seattle or Puget sound.
- Theodores 8y agoCan anyone summarise the article for those of us in Europe? We can't get the LA Times here. What has changed this year - wild fires? Or is it the problem of ten million cars pissing in the pool with no wind to clear the air. Do tell.
- jedberg 8y ago> We can't get the LA Times here. You should let your MEP know how upset you are about that... TL;DR: We don't know why exactly, but it's a bad sign and action should be taken. But it's only slightly out of normal for this time of year.
- ItsMe000001 8y agoSo.... my MEP calls the LA Times to forward my complaint? If I would want to complain, why should I not tell them directly? If you want to claim it's an issue of that much discussed EU law, plenty (or even most) of US websites don't have an issue serving their content to me, from NY Times, Washington Post - even Fox News has no problems (I would suspect them to be the first ones to complain about the EU)! To me that shows it's not a problem with EU law, but one with relevant people in power at the LA Times. I don't see how a message to an MEP could solve that, unless you think the EU should give in every time somebody in the US has a complaint - valid or not.
- jedberg 8y agoThe LA Times has decided that the cost of compliance with GDPR is not worth the effort since they don't get any ad dollars from Europeans. That's because the GDPR is such a quagmire that it requires expensive consultants to audit compliance, and since it is untested in courts, they're not even sure they are in compliance when they are done. A lot of local US papers have made the same choice, the LA times just happens to be one of the biggest. Let your MEP know that the next time they want to write an extra-territorial law about technology, they should get some technologists to help them write it so that it actually makes sense.
- swingline-747 8y agoYuck. I remember the early 80's regularly seeing a visible smog.
- jpmattia 8y agoIf interested, here is a link to the air quality index, as measured by purple air monitors: https://www.purpleair.com/map#11/34.0244/-118.4531 https://www.purpleair.com/map#11/34.0244/-118.4531 The map extends worldwide, but only reports data from those who have purchased their monitors.
- NickBusey 8y agoWhoa, what's going on in Utah? https://www.purpleair.com/map#6.74/39.975/-111.145 https://www.purpleair.com/map#6.74/39.975/-111.145
- stevenwoo 8y agoGeography and local weather patterns, similar to Mexico City in that regard where the city sits surrounded mostly by mountains and frequent broadly local temperature conditions trap air in the valley.
- Forbo 8y agoThere's also a 113,000 acre fire burning currently.
- justsomedood 8y agoLots of fires. For the past couple of months something has been burning here and the air has been mad much more often than not.
- y-c-o-m-b 8y agoAirNow also has a national map for US air quality: https://gispub.epa.gov/airnow/ https://gispub.epa.gov/airnow/
- another-cuppa 8y agoI'm quite concerned about air quality in the UK but according to that map everywhere in the UK is "good", even London.
- thinelvis 8y agoTruck traffic in LA is by far the problem, not so much the car traffic (though that is horrible, based on the population). Ships come into Long Beach, the containers are offloaded, the trucks begin a lumbering journey to points East. Belching all the way. I'm not making up the claim. California rules put in place over ten years ago had trucks retrofitted or whatever, and this change to TRUCKS ONLY was like removing 30 MILLION cars from California roads. There are not 30 million trucks in California, though sometimes it appears so. http://4cleanair.org/DieselTrucks.pdf http://4cleanair.org/DieselTrucks.pdf
- blue11 8y agoThe ports of LA and LB handle something like 40% of the US-China trade. There are "clean trucks" requirements, but that can be enforced only in the immediate vicinity of the port. I don't have a source but there have been reports that the clean trucks shuttle back and forth between the port and nearby places where the cargo can be transferred to other trucks.
- pfranz 8y ago> Truck traffic in LA is by far the problem Any citation on that? The article itself says the peak of pollution isn't as high, just the longevity. The article also mentions climate change modifying weather patterns which could be a contributor. As someone who lived in LA you're always preying for rain to wash out ash or smog from nearby fires (which seem more common) or pollution and precipitation has been rarer over the past few years. No doubt reducing pollution (and trucks have been a huge contributor) will help, but since you mentioned Long Beach, boats have very few regulations and burn giant amounts of the lowest-quality fuel. An addition, a bunch of recent studies I've seen over the past few years show that up to 30% of the air pollution on the west coast comes from Asia. It just seems like something that should be addressed on multiple fronts and with things objectively getting worse, every bit helps.
- chrisbrandow 8y agoTrucks and shops are definitley one of the biggest problems for riverside. These are the biggest source of pm2.5 precursors because the wind patterns basically funnel all of the LA basin atmosphere out there and the pollution transforms over the 24-36 hr journey. I used to work for air pollution regulators. I don’t have the citations but I’ve seen the presentations.
- itry2develop 8y agoBut keep piling in those people... growth growth growth or the rich can't get richer.
- mrhappyunhappy 8y agoI read somewhere that a single fire in the area pollutes more than all of th cars combined for a year. I don’t know how much of this is true, but if it is, it seems climate change is having a much bigger impact already that we simply choose to ignore.
- Retric 8y agoWinds blow east and most people live very close to the coast making fires significantly less of an issue. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:California_population_map.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:California_populatio... Big wildfires are also concentrated in areas with few people. https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?hl=en&mid=1ZpcZ8OMZh1G1XwRmt9GaCwH6f-g&ll=38.37852090873982%2C-118.9441938415527&z=7 https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?hl=en&mid=1ZpcZ8OMZh1G1... The real issue is transportation pollution occurs right where people are. Further, you get inversion layers over cities which traps the pollution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inversion_(meteorology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inversion_(meteorology)
- mrhappyunhappy 8y agoDo you live in the area? It doesn’t sound like it. If you live anywhere near San Fernando valley then you’d be quick to acknowledge the impact fires have on the area.
- mrhappyunhappy 8y agoWhen are we going to acknowledge that commuting to a city center in this day and age is a ridiculous thing to do. I would wager most of LAs output is in the form of info services that can be done from home or the burbs. I remember when gas prices were at an all time high at one point and nobody was dissuaded from driving less. People would simply complain more but suck it up and go about their routine anyway. And who can blame them?! SoCal is not traversable by any means other than an automobile. There are nutjobs who will fight tooth and nail about public transportation, specifically buses, but any resident will tell you what kind of people use those services and they can’t be convinced to. I reckon fires and geography have a lot to do with everything but unless there is a dramatic shift in public policy, ain’t nothing going to change.
- seanmcdirmid 8y agoThis is all about a bad wildfire season right? Even Seattle had many bad air weeks this summer.
- greglindahl 8y agoWildfire-related smoke has been bad, but non-wildfire-related ozone has also been bad.
- viburnum 8y agoBan cars.
- shams93 8y agoI live here in the valley and you can feel it like taking a punch from Mike Tyson in the lungs
- shams93 8y agoHowever it used to be far worse back when everyone was using leaded gas here in the 70s.