Wildfires are challenging air quality monitoring infrastructure
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what air quality monitoring infrastructure are you referring to?
The one that the fascists destroyed?
or
The one that the fascists destroyed?
The one that the fascists destroyed?
or
The one that the fascists destroyed?
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Lead pipes were often used on the sewer side of house plumbing. Molten lead + oakum used to seal cast iron sewer pipes. Sheets of lead are used for many variation of roof flashing(I think still available today). Solder for copper piping, wiring and AC coils. Many a lead sinker still lurking in tackle boxes. Most ammo contains lead. Classic electronics. Stashes of old wheel weights.
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Later in the story they clarify that lead was found in smoke in LA County where towns were burning down also in LA County.
How far does lead remain problematic in these smoke plumes? I’d expect it’s much more the PM2.5 and PAHs that would be worrisome regarding the massive wildfires in northern Canada.
Anyway, soon as markets open I’m going all-in on air filter companies. Lots of shareholder value is being created with all this pollution!
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The one that that fascists don't believe is needed because obviously the climate isn't changing.
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Sewer lines aren’t too likely to burn though.
My fave source of atmospheric mercury is crematoria. Because fillings used to use mercury.
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The climate isn't changing and pollution isn't real. We're gonna be fine!
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Yep, woods are the problem. If industry are allowed to clear all the trees then there will be much less pollution from forest fires.
Also there will be less oxygen in the atmosphere, further reducing fire risk!
Also there will be less oxygen in the atmosphere, further reducing fire risk!
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And the pollution will be in our air for weeks at a time. When it's close enough to population, the fire pollution will be in our water for years. That's watershed close, not on top of the population close. That also has the issue of needing enough investment in monitoring, plus treatment to avoid (lol, as if) uneven and inequality-enforcing effects!
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Lead may also be present as a component in other materials, like PVC (where it used to be more widely used as a functional additive).
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And if you guys think it's bad for you because of wildfires in the northern parts of the provinces, just imagine how it is for us here. Where I am, this summer a day with a blue - or even a blue-ish - sky is a good day, and has been for years.
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My ex spent the entire relationship with me, and then several years with the guy after me, idealizing this small town in BC in the mountains where you could hike and ski and etc — pure paradise. Eventually they packed up the toddler and newborn and spent the summer there.
Locked indoors because of the smoke.
She decided maybe she didn’t need to move after all.
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I check https://fire.airnow.gov/ on the decently regular, and particularly when local air quality alerts come out. The PM2.5/PM10 scales are supposed to be 0-500. When the purple AQI sensors go to 2800+, oof.
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If the problem is that the air quality infrastructure isn't able to accurately measure pollutants because of the changing climate, obviously the solution must be to get rid of these 'broken' air quality monitors. No more useless monitors, no more nagging messages about unhealthy air! Problem solved!
This solution has been brought to you by the Republican Party. Making America Great* Again!
* by completely ignoring everything that's wrong.
This solution has been brought to you by the Republican Party. Making America Great* Again!
* by completely ignoring everything that's wrong.
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If particulate pollution is your concern, map.purpleair.com already has the U.S. government beat for coverage. PurpleAir monitoring stations use Plantower sensors, which report PM2.5 mass concentrations in micrograms per cubic meter. They don't weigh the particles like a U.S. government station does. Instead, they count and measure the sizes of the particles going through the measurement chamber with a laser. Internally programmed reference weights are used to convert the counts to a mass concentration number. It's not as accurate as weighing the particles, but it's pretty good, and with correction factors it can be very close to official government numbers for normal types of particles such as from wildfire smoke.
You can purchase your own monitoring station from PurpleAir. They're a bit pricey. You can also purchase less expensive air quality monitors such as the Unitrend (UNI-T) A25M or A25D. The Unitrend models also use Plantower sensors, so the readings can be directly compared to the raw PM2.5 microgram per cubic meter figures on the PurpleAir map, and they are very consistent.
Incidentally, you should only look at the outdoor sensors on the PurpleAir map, not the indoor sensors. The indoor sensors incorrectly report the CF=1 numbers from the Plantower sensors, which are microgram per cubic meter figures assuming the density of industrial metal particles intead of the normal CF=atm figures based on the density of smoke particles. Above 25 micrograms per cubic meter, the indoor sensor PM2.5 figures are overestimated. Below 25 micrograms per cubic meter they are correct. I've brought this issue to PurpleAir's attention but I don't think they've fixed it.
https://apps.gsl.noaa.gov/smoke/ has animated surface smoke forecast maps, though I find the forecasts to be quite inaccurate in the absolute.
You can purchase your own monitoring station from PurpleAir. They're a bit pricey. You can also purchase less expensive air quality monitors such as the Unitrend (UNI-T) A25M or A25D. The Unitrend models also use Plantower sensors, so the readings can be directly compared to the raw PM2.5 microgram per cubic meter figures on the PurpleAir map, and they are very consistent.
Incidentally, you should only look at the outdoor sensors on the PurpleAir map, not the indoor sensors. The indoor sensors incorrectly report the CF=1 numbers from the Plantower sensors, which are microgram per cubic meter figures assuming the density of industrial metal particles intead of the normal CF=atm figures based on the density of smoke particles. Above 25 micrograms per cubic meter, the indoor sensor PM2.5 figures are overestimated. Below 25 micrograms per cubic meter they are correct. I've brought this issue to PurpleAir's attention but I don't think they've fixed it.
https://apps.gsl.noaa.gov/smoke/ has animated surface smoke forecast maps, though I find the forecasts to be quite inaccurate in the absolute.
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In a normal house fire where the fire department shows up, true. But in a California or Hawaii type wildfire where there is no FD and lots of blast furnace type winds, everything above ground can be melted and even boiled off. Lots of older homes are not slab foundations but instead have outer stem walls and a under floor crawl space. My old built in 1942 house was a stem wall type and probably had 50+ pounds of lead piping connecting the sinks, bathtub and toilets to the primary iron sewer system. In a Cali type wildfire, all of that would be put in play as an environmental contaminate.
Crematoria might also put out some lead from bullets inside folks that the surgeons decided to leave rather then risk further damage removing.
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I’d also invest in air contitioning companies. With runaway climate change, expect millions in global air condiionter sales. India alone will see tens of millions of yearly sales. So as we all experience increased heatwaves and 45C weather, at least shareholder value will go up.
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How does this article fail to mention broadly deployed PurpleAir sensors (except for a passing reference to Crowd Sourced Low Cost sensors)?
Granted there's a lot they don't do, but for wildfires you can watch the surface level smoke more or less in realtime along the map. Slightly "less accurate" data is better than no data.
There are over 25000 active PurpleAir sensors and most of them are located in the USA.
Granted there's a lot they don't do, but for wildfires you can watch the surface level smoke more or less in realtime along the map. Slightly "less accurate" data is better than no data.
There are over 25000 active PurpleAir sensors and most of them are located in the USA.
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I think you’re joking, but this week American federal elected representatives sent a letter to the Canadian ambassador telling Canada that they want Canada to start dealing with the smoke that’s blowing into the U.S.
Not like it’s caused by the U.S. CO2 emissions or anything like that.
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Yeah, how dare the article not have mentioned that Low-cost monitors now allow people to crowdsource data about air quality in their communities. (However, these tend to be less precise and accurate than the high-grade instruments.)
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A bit tangential, but I highly recommend taping five square MERV-13 furnace filters and a box fan together to make a cube, with a shroud over the edge of the fan, blowing "out" to create negative pressure inside the box. Sometimes called a Corsi-Rosenthal box (or a shop filter), it costs about $150 and takes maybe a couple hours to build, and it completely clears out the pm2.5 and smoke smell inside in less than an hour (for our full detached house!).
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Oh I was mixing it up with the clean water service connection, which is buried underground (and thus is bloody expensive to fix).
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Holy shit that's a fantastic tip and should be featured up at the top.
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That reminds me of the Tri-State Crematory scandal. (Where the lack of burning was the real problem)
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Sure. If they retroactively pay for the acid rain the Midwest spewed for years.
And the poisoning of Lake Erie.
And, and, and...
I don't think beating other countries over the head for environmental fallout is a good idea when you bear the kind of responsibility the US does for current and past environmental catastrophies. Glass houses and stones and all that.
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This reminds me of a possible lower cost way to get wildfire AQ sensors into rural locations. Oklahoma already has a decent network of sensors for near real time weather data. https://www.mesonet.org/
Should be fairly low cost to add a couple of wildfire AQ sensors to the existing mesonet sites. Even if they were the lower cost crowdfunded versions. Much better to have a statewide network of lower quality sites then 1 high quality in each of OKC and Tulsa.
I think many states have similar rural based weather networks.
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normally butters
Ars Praefectus
There's a tangential problem with wildfire smoke monitoring in the aviation sector, especially in the US where the large majority of aviation weather observations are generated by automatic systems (ASOS/AWOS) designed to measure visibility based on the impact of precipitation, fog, and other water content in the atmosphere.
These systems often report unlimited visibility (>10 statute miles) in dry weather conditions when the actual visibility is severely limited by smoke. They just aren't designed to account for smoke as a cause of reduced visibility. A person looking out the window of the control tower with binoculars the old fashioned way can easily see that visibility is limited by smoke, but the automated sensor suite cannot.
These systems often report unlimited visibility (>10 statute miles) in dry weather conditions when the actual visibility is severely limited by smoke. They just aren't designed to account for smoke as a cause of reduced visibility. A person looking out the window of the control tower with binoculars the old fashioned way can easily see that visibility is limited by smoke, but the automated sensor suite cannot.
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What's the point of making a "box" instead of just putting a filter on one or both sides? Larger surface area so it doesn't choke the fan?
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The "high-grade instruments" are those that are frequently serviced and tested to ensure accuracy for determining compliance with air quality standards. Yes, they're expensive, both to acquire and to operate. But they're the gold standard that the lower-cost (and therefore more widely-dispersed) monitors complement rather than replace. Much like with weather measurements, where there's a primary network run by NOAA, usually at airports, and most other networks are a step down in warrantable precision (though most are pretty good).
Interesting that wildfire smoke in the past wasn't considered when determining an area's compliance with PM standards. It was called an "exceptional event" and removed from the data for standards compliance. That probably made sense when really big fires were maybe a once in a decade occurrence and not really controllable as an emission source. Unfortunately, they've become much more frequent, not just in California, so it's arguable whether that should be the practice any more. Though if regional wildfire smoke is causing violations, and nothing can be done about it by an individual air district (or even, sometimes state - EPA doesn't control emissions directly in most cases, leaving it to states to develop their own plans for EPA to review and approve), the standards themselves may be called into question. The smoke is an unquestionable health hazard (among other things - reduced solar production due to reduced insolation and particle deposition on panels is also a thing), but ultimately might have to be considered part of the emission background to be controlled or responded to in other ways. One of the costs of climate change adaptation, IOW.
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California already faced a similar issue with particulate pollution from China wafting in and causing it to be out of norm.
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Since box fans are not designed to pull air through a filter, giving them a bit of empty space between the filter and the fan helps increase airflow volume, and thus overall efficiency. You wouldn't need to make the whole box out of filters to get the effect, but doing so gets you a longer total life before everything is plugged up.
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Photo Caption is wrong. The Statue of Liberty is not in downtown Manhattan. It's on Liberty Island. In New Jersey.
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I just happened to be looking at an open source version of an air particulate monitor:
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