Air pollution levels in Taiwan - grim reading

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
381

I almost always see a smog layer when flying over Taipei right through the year. Its not particularly clean at all. I have many pictures of this over the years.

1 Like
382

Correction: Taipei does.

My statement does not apply if one lives in Keelung or Ruifang.

I get where you’re coming from though, but I’ve experienced true blue skies in Taiwan (Kenting) and it gives me a sunburn in the time it takes to walk to 7-11 and back.

383

The air pollution in Kaohsiung has been absolutely gross yesterday and today. It was over AQI 170 yesterday and the air tasted like burnt rubber. I drive a scooter so I am getting even more crap in my lungs at ground level.

Today is not much better.

384

I spent the day yesterday driving all around Chiayi County from Meishan to Budai and there was just a constant stench in the air and haze.

385

Helping pollution?

1 Like
386

For weather experts out there: any ideas why the air quality has gotten so much worse today? The weather’s been cold wet crap for about a week, but the air quality was good. Today, no real change in the weather, but it’s toxic out there.

1 Like
387

You are right. Wind from North now.

Screenshot_20180201-122621

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Screenshot_20180201-1226591080×1920 551 KB

388

How do you take the readings?

389

I want the location of that 17 reading. I want to move there.

390

I think Yangmingshan’s a little more upmarket than Xindian. :money_mouth_face:

391

It seems the EPA’s data beautification algorithm missed a spot today

38

392

Current readings are the same for Northern Taiwan and Beijing

03

37

393

Yup, it’s ugly now. Weird day: in the morning it was lovely. Even from Danshui I could see ascending levels of mountains to the south. But later in the morning, and since then, ugh.

I don’t suppose I can blame more than 10% of this on all the baibai burning and fireworks?

3 Likes
394

So is phase one of China’s plan to conquer Taiwan to match the air quality with China?

395

I blame it on the baibai.

396

Even Penghu is bad at 99.

An island catching bad air from both Taiwan and China.

Screenshot_20180302-224614

397

You can blame more than 80% of this on China.

398

Thats sad.

399

Wow. Screenshot_20180302-234012

400

I like using this site better. Thousands of citizen stations so you can compare to government numbers. Unlike the aqicn site, this displays raw pm2.5 values, not AQI; so use this calculator to compare.

For reference:

 PM2.5 | AQI
-------+-----
    0  |   0
    6  |  25
   12  |  50
   23.5|  75
   35.4| 100
   45.2| 125
   55.4| 150
   102 | 175
   150 | 200

The relation is not linear as you can see - the AQI is more strict at lower levels.

In related news, just ordered myself a Honeywell HPA200. Hopefully will increase lifespan by a couple of years.