The east - west small mountain range that separates kaohsiung and tainan create very real stagnation spots. The northern pingtung/koahsoung areas that hug the mountains are well known greenhouse spots because of this, and the intense pollution build up there. I ran tropical plant research in that area for a bit over a decade specifically because of its greenhouse effect. We were growing some of the most ultra tropical plants and getting them to reproduce. The pollution is nasty though.
The other important part is the left hump on Taiwan. Wind blows around and tucks in.
Kaohsiung already has a lucky location. As dirty as it is, itās coastal and much of the gunk blows and washes away. If that industry was located in say Qishan, it would likely be New Dehli like
We need more arrows to resolve this mystery !
Itās like a comedy sketch. Taiwan is like a fish that is being bbqāed at moon festival in dodgy sauce.
This is a bit macabre, but Taipeiās 1st funeral parlor was closed this year thanks to urban renewal. Now all the cremation is done at the 2nd funeral parlor where the already old facilities are working overtime. I used to go hiking in the hills behind the 2nd funeral parlor (Fuzhou mountain) but not anymore. I donāt mind some extra calcium in my system, but you never know if thereās any hazardous particles coming out of those chimneys.
What I posted is the MSN link directly visible on my version of Windows.
Itās also claiming an āunhealthyā reading now in Taipei, so its bearish views on air quality do not appear to beāon this siteāa short term blip.
I wonder what leads to this discrepancy across different platforms . . .
Yeah, I thought of that too, but stillā¦ over such a wide area, and worse than most polluted cities, in places that probably donāt have that many monitoring stations?
Winds kicking up dust from the Sahara, guessing from the map. Also, could be burning season. Burning after harvest, burning for heat, burning deadfall, and theyāre gonna be burning for cooking
AFAIK, AQI values are composite indexes supposed to reflect the total hazard from various pollutants, calculated in different ways depending on the country doing the calculating.
I think some of those pollutants can in principle be measured by satellite and others not (Iām not sure which), but itās usually done using ground-based sensors. For the ones monitored by satellites, Iād be surprised if the Sahara Desert is a major priority for high-resolution imaging.
I mean, yes, if the map is accurate I assumed itās dust/sand because what else could it be? Maybe weather satellites provide sufficient info about dust/sandstorms for that part of the AQI calculation and then they assume estimated values for the mostly human pollutants they donāt have measured values for, something like that.
Iām just surprised so much of the area at once would be pretty much the worst place on earth pollution-wise, as suggested by that site.
