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Carbon monoxide from the fires very visible right now on Windy: https://www.windy.com/-CO-concentration-cosc?cosc,-16.636,132.188,4 https://www.windy.com/-CO-co

Carbon monoxide from the fires very visible right now on Windy: https://www.windy.com/-CO-concentration-cosc?cosc,-16.636,132.188,4 https://www.windy.com/-CO-concentration-cosc?cosc,-16.636,13... (with China looking like its usual, humdrum Mordor self)

pjc50 7y ago
That is an amazing resource! How is that measured? I assume it's some sort of satellite spectroscopy? And what's up with Belgium? Appears to be a huge plume from Dunkirk.
- simonsarris 7y ago
  Many big cities "puff" out a CO cloud that will come and go. On the bottom left there's a time visualization that you can play with. Yeah its NASA's MOPITT sensor on the Terra satellite https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/terra/spacecraft/index.html https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/terra/spacecraft/index.ht...
r-s 7y ago
This is a really cool visualization.
billfruit 7y ago
I wonder what is the massive concentration in the middle of Africa.
- simonsarris 7y ago
  It's fires there too, actually. It is the middle of dry season right now for central Africa. Windy also has an "Active fires" layer: https://www.windy.com/-Show---add-more-layers/overlays?fires,-15.284,41.660,3 https://www.windy.com/-Show---add-more-layers/overlays?fires... (but the pollution layers are often more fun, and more revealing) which I think is data from Copernicus, but I'm not sure what the data is exactly.
  - SkyBelow 7y ago
    Central African Republic looks like it is 98% on fire right now. But the CO display doesn't match nearly as well with the fires as it does in Australia.
- satori99 7y ago
  I think the ones in the middle of Australia are large scale mining operations. There are no cities there and no forests either. The African ones probably are probably mines too.
- i_am_nomad 7y ago
  When you get off a plane from Europe to sub-Saharan Africa, you are often greeted by the smell of countless open cooking fires dotting the land. It’s quite nice in my opinion, though it’s not healthy for those who use them.
  - erikpukinskis 7y ago
    Rocket stoves can help.
    - Gibbon1 7y ago
      Interesting bit. I have a van with a 100 amp hour lead acid battery and an inverter. You can run a microwave and an electric kettle off it. Seems that solar panels + batteries would be enough for cooking.
      - erikpukinskis 7y ago
        Unlike solar panels and batteries, rocket stoves can be made with dirt.
FooHentai 7y ago
Not sure how accurate this is - is the spread of CO gonna be the same as the general smoke? I’m looking out my window in the South Island of NZ and the morning light is an unusual, deep yellow. News said there’s high-altitude smoke from the Aussie fires overhead today and this light suggests it’s already off to the east, but that’s not borne out on that neat visual.
- ehmish 7y ago
  The Australian Government's Met service has a neat tool which lets you see live images from the Himawari 8 satelite, which shows the smoke really well. http://satview.bom.gov.au/ http://satview.bom.gov.au/
- FooHentai 7y ago
  10AM now, and everything’s still bathed yellow. Really weird, poignant way to start the decade.
pkaye 7y ago
What is the dark area next to bay area in the pacific ocean? We don't have any fires here.
- Baeocystin 7y ago
  Apparently we need to have a firm talk with the grey whales and their coal-powered migration tools. Seriously, though, I'm genuinely curious as to the real answer. Any ideas?
- staplers 7y ago
  Looks like wind carried the pollution from california over the pacific.. pretty cut and dry.
  - mturmon 7y ago
    This does indeed happen. For instance, evening winds in southern coastal CA will often blow out to sea ... perhaps in the SFBA it’s similar. But in this particular instance, it’s hard to be sure if that’s the explanation without knowing more. The data will only be observed once or twice per day, due to the MODIS orbit, and clouds and other problems will cause dropouts. These website data seem to be interpolated spatially and temporally using wind fields and perhaps other side information. So these areas of apparent high CO concentration could be due to the transport model or the prior as much as the actual observed CO data. The website doesn’t say what data product they are using. The MOPITT website advertises daily data, but the displayed data are faster than that.
l0b0 7y ago
Never had any problems with this site before, but that layer (and all the other air quality layers) are just not showing. Does it work for anyone else in Firefox on Linux?
- sumedh 7y ago
  Same issue in Chrome on Mac
sizzle 7y ago
Wow what a great UX and UI on this site. How have I never heard of this?!

pjc50 7y ago

That is an amazing resource! How is that measured? I assume it's some sort of satellite spectroscopy? And what's up with Belgium? Appears to be a huge plume from Dunkirk.

simonsarris 7y ago
Many big cities "puff" out a CO cloud that will come and go. On the bottom left there's a time visualization that you can play with. Yeah its NASA's MOPITT sensor on the Terra satellite https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/terra/spacecraft/index.html https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/terra/spacecraft/index.ht...

r-s 7y ago

This is a really cool visualization.

billfruit 7y ago

I wonder what is the massive concentration in the middle of Africa.

simonsarris 7y ago
It's fires there too, actually. It is the middle of dry season right now for central Africa. Windy also has an "Active fires" layer: https://www.windy.com/-Show---add-more-layers/overlays?fires,-15.284,41.660,3 https://www.windy.com/-Show---add-more-layers/overlays?fires... (but the pollution layers are often more fun, and more revealing) which I think is data from Copernicus, but I'm not sure what the data is exactly.
- SkyBelow 7y ago
  Central African Republic looks like it is 98% on fire right now. But the CO display doesn't match nearly as well with the fires as it does in Australia.
satori99 7y ago
I think the ones in the middle of Australia are large scale mining operations. There are no cities there and no forests either. The African ones probably are probably mines too.
i_am_nomad 7y ago
When you get off a plane from Europe to sub-Saharan Africa, you are often greeted by the smell of countless open cooking fires dotting the land. It’s quite nice in my opinion, though it’s not healthy for those who use them.
- erikpukinskis 7y ago
  Rocket stoves can help.
  - Gibbon1 7y ago
    Interesting bit. I have a van with a 100 amp hour lead acid battery and an inverter. You can run a microwave and an electric kettle off it. Seems that solar panels + batteries would be enough for cooking.
    - erikpukinskis 7y ago
      Unlike solar panels and batteries, rocket stoves can be made with dirt.

FooHentai 7y ago

Not sure how accurate this is - is the spread of CO gonna be the same as the general smoke? I’m looking out my window in the South Island of NZ and the morning light is an unusual, deep yellow. News said there’s high-altitude smoke from the Aussie fires overhead today and this light suggests it’s already off to the east, but that’s not borne out on that neat visual.

ehmish 7y ago
The Australian Government's Met service has a neat tool which lets you see live images from the Himawari 8 satelite, which shows the smoke really well. http://satview.bom.gov.au/ http://satview.bom.gov.au/
FooHentai 7y ago
10AM now, and everything’s still bathed yellow. Really weird, poignant way to start the decade.

pkaye 7y ago

What is the dark area next to bay area in the pacific ocean? We don't have any fires here.

Baeocystin 7y ago
Apparently we need to have a firm talk with the grey whales and their coal-powered migration tools. Seriously, though, I'm genuinely curious as to the real answer. Any ideas?
staplers 7y ago
Looks like wind carried the pollution from california over the pacific.. pretty cut and dry.
- mturmon 7y ago
  This does indeed happen. For instance, evening winds in southern coastal CA will often blow out to sea ... perhaps in the SFBA it’s similar. But in this particular instance, it’s hard to be sure if that’s the explanation without knowing more. The data will only be observed once or twice per day, due to the MODIS orbit, and clouds and other problems will cause dropouts. These website data seem to be interpolated spatially and temporally using wind fields and perhaps other side information. So these areas of apparent high CO concentration could be due to the transport model or the prior as much as the actual observed CO data. The website doesn’t say what data product they are using. The MOPITT website advertises daily data, but the displayed data are faster than that.

l0b0 7y ago

Never had any problems with this site before, but that layer (and all the other air quality layers) are just not showing. Does it work for anyone else in Firefox on Linux?

sumedh 7y ago
Same issue in Chrome on Mac

sizzle 7y ago

Wow what a great UX and UI on this site. How have I never heard of this?!