Yes. Here: aqicn.org/?city=Taiwan/Gutin
It wasn’t fog.
The EPA website has a warning about the PM2.5 levels–something about the northeast monsoon bringing it in, so yeah, I think it’s all from China. The air quality was fine before the front came in–it was a pretty rapid deterioration (within hours). The warning says to avoid strenuous outdoor activity today.
[quote=“headhonchoII”]Do do they still burn off the rice stalks in china this time of year, even with all the smog from everything else?
Incredible.
They also do this in Taiwan , and it does get hazy, but usually earlier in the year.[/quote]
Yeah, saw it from the train windows all through Zhejiang and Shanghaishire on Sunday. It’s rank. The countryside looks so bad. There are loads of farms with veggies covered in frames topped with white plastic. The sky is a very low-visibility white haze. It looks like a post-apocalyptic dreamscape.
Seems a bit clearer out of the window today, but Ningbo doesn’t seem to get it as badly as the rest of the east, for some reason. Hopefully it will ease up in Taiwan a bit as well.
I’ve been to Northern china in winter, that’s just depressing, mile after mile of flat cold brown earth under a hazy sky.
[quote=“AmoyMama”][
Yes. Here: aqicn.org/?city=Taiwan/Gutin
.[/quote]
Funny you post that, it was very evident when I left work there last night.
Well, today I had the impression that the streets were more smelly (smoke) than usual. May be it was psychological, may be it’s just that the air is worse than usual.
There’s been a band of crap coming over from China. These images let you see what is going on (antarticbeech posted the NASA one up…thanks)
The high resolution satellite maps give one a much clearer picture of the pollution (NASA). I couldn’t find an image that included Taiwan (probably not within lens field)
earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=82535
Making it’s way to Taiwan…
accuweather.com/en/tw/national/satellite
I think all that hazy stuff over China and stretching far out to sea past Taiwan is smog!
cwb.gov.tw/V7e/observe/satel … htm?type=1
The numbers say it all. There’s no escape from the Asian brown cloud!
aqicn.org/map/
Bullshit map from Taiwan EPA claming the situation is moderate! When you click into the map by location you see it is not actually following it’s own numbers!
taqm.epa.gov.tw/taqm/en/PsiAreaHourly.aspx
Looking at the difference between West and East coast Taiwan and on into Okinawa, it looks like it’s a mix of homegrown pollution and the Chinese stuff as usual.
Yep, the numbers have been steadily ticking up this afternoon and evening as the air from China has made its way up the island. Gross.
Guys, do wear facial masks when going outside, it is that bad.
After getting my lungs clean in Vancouver, I now am able to smell the stench around me. For goodness sake, this is really awful.
Yeah, I think that these days the air quality is worse than normally. Indeed, I started to use my mask again, not this week but the previous.
[quote=“Icon”]Guys, do wear facial masks when going outside, it is that bad.
After getting my lungs clean in Vancouver, I now am able to smell the stench around me. For goodness sake, this is really awful.[/quote]
It’s ok Icon, I just keep chain smoking ,when outside. I think the Marlboros push out less Carcinogens than Taiwan’s Air at the moment :tic: .
Ugh. 185 in Danshui at time of writing. I was assuming this was just more of the rain and clouds - after all, a couple of weeks ago the rain had washed away much of the pollution. But those aren’t rain clouds out the window. It’s pollution, or haze as my weather app has it.
Is it worse than usual this year, or am I just going crazy with the lack of sunlight?
I’ve been trying to get the head of the school to shut the windows and close the doors, but she can’t seem to break out of meaningless exchange of niceties mode. I showed her the readings from aqicn.org/city/taiwan/tainan/ Friday, when it was in the purple VERY UNHEALTHY range but the friendly smile never left her face. I switched the website to Chinese and showed it to her again, and she still didn’t seem to be concerned. I emailed her the link and a recent news article in Chinese about the pm25 levels and she replied that my Chinese is “hen li hai.”
By the way, I noticed the AQICN.ORG website uses Taiwan EPA’s data for their readings here, but Taiwan EPA’s website shows much lower pm25 counts.
Currently, it’s 101 according to aqicn.org/city/taiwan/tainan/ it’s 174.
The surgical masks I see people wearing when they have “gan mao” isn’t effective for pm25 particles and it’s not like you can smell or “feel” it immediately.
How do you guys deal with this? I could bring my HEPA air cleaner into the classroom, but with the doors and windows open it’ll be clogged up in no time. HEPA filters are not cheap and they don’t really work with open ventilation like this, anyway.
[quote=“formosaobama”]By the way, I noticed the AQICN.ORG website uses Taiwan EPA’s data for their readings here, but Taiwan EPA’s website shows much lower pm25 counts.
Currently, it’s 101 according to aqicn.org/city/taiwan/tainan/ it’s 174. .[/quote]
That’s because it’s not the same scale. See the following for the conversion aqicn.org/faq/2013-09-09/revised … eakpoints/
176 right now at Songshan. Closing in on the “Very Unhealthy” level. Gross. PM 2.5 is 118. Current PM 2.5 in Vancouver, BC is 4.4. What. the. hell. :aiyo:
I can smell it. I walk outside on so-called “hazy” days and think, “Smells like Taiwan today.” I’ve never smelled that pollution odor anywhere else. The last few days here in Neihu have been awful, and every day it’s a slightly different parfume. Yesterday smelled like burning. I’ve developed a nasty cough; I’m pretty sure my lungs are trying to expel all the crap I’m breathing in whenever I step outside.
This reminds me of something we talked about in university, how North America (and other places, I’m sure) “exports” pollution. By having factories in Asia, it dramatically reduces the amount of pollution that North America produces. Then, North America blames Asia for emitting such large amounts of pollution, turning a blind eye to the fact that they’re purchasing most of the things made in these factories. Gah. Exported pollution.
Mainland China is much worse believe me. You can taste the pollution as well as smell it. The locals in Taiwan don’t understand air pollution, and they don’t take it seriously because they can’t see it or unless it has been in the media 24/7. They just think you are being a crazy foreigner ‘thinking too much’. The problem of course is many of them ‘thinking too little’. The information is all there for people to learn for themselves. There’s also been so many environmental and health problems many people would rather not know about it.
The pollution levels could sky rocket over the next few days starting now due to a cold front coming down from North China.
Just watched the TV news, loads of warnings about the cold front approaching (<10C in some places), nothing about us going to get blasted by pollution. Looking at the PM2.5 numbers they’ve started shooting up everywhere since earlier this evening.
Went through SillyPutty’s links above, here is the calculator to produce the AQI index as used on the AQICN.org website.
airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=reso … c_aqi_calc
You just input the PM2.5 ug/cm3 figures and hey presto if matches exactly with the AQICN.org numbers.
Worryingly it seems that Taiwan still uses the old AQI index and not the new one which has been in use since at least 2012 (not a surprise to me) which is less stringent in terms of rating ‘moderate’, ‘unhealthy’ etc.
That’s what’s been disconcerting me for the past month. Tons of news stories about the cold and the rain - but only a handful about the pollution.
If the pollution does skyrocket … ouch. This past month has already been the worst I’ve been aware of in Taipei. I’m used to winter numbers here being around 70 - but day after day, week after week, in the 150s and above seems new to me.
Part of me wants to figure out how to compare pollution figures by month and year. But a significant part of me thinks that I don’t want to know.
There are some historical databases on the Taiwan EPA website, somebody skilled with excel or charting could work up a quick presentation, but I believe PM 2.5 records don’t go back very far.
I too would like the see the numbers, if pollution has really been reducing in a steady line or if in fact the situation has worsened over the last few years due to the Chinese pollution coming back at us in Taiwan ( Chinese air pollution has definitely worsened over the last few years, with record pollution levels in Shanghai this year for instance…too many cars…and too many coal fired power stations).
[quote=“headhonchoII”]There are some historical databases on the Taiwan EPA website, somebody skilled with excel or charting could work up a quick presentation, but I believe PM 2.5 records don’t go back very far.
I too would like the see the numbers, if pollution has really been reducing in a steady line or if in fact the situation has worsened over the last few years due to the Chinese pollution coming back at us in Taiwan ( Chinese air pollution has definitely worsened over the last few years, with record pollution levels in Shanghai this year for instance…too many cars…and too many coal fired power stations).[/quote]
The only two pages for exporting data I found were these two. Neither provides very much data. The aqicn site probably has more data, but they seem bent on not releasing any. Quite unfortunate.
I can’t quite find the blog post, but there was in an incremental improvement in Tokyo over the last ten years after the mayor swore to do something about the pollution. Now if only something like that happened in Taiwan… :loco:
Yep, if only Taiwan recognized the problem in the first place as something that is island wide. If only they understood that motor vehicles are a very large part of the problem as well as industry.
It’s 2014 and Im very disappointed to still see the 10 million+ scooters being driven everywhere let alone the numbers of cars on the roads.
They keep blaming China or showing pollution china but ignoring the homegrown pollution in Taiwan.
Dealing with Chinese pollution would help but Taiwan needs to get its shit together and stop ignoring its own backwardness in this regard.
Tokyos pollution levels have decreased significantly since about 10 years ago when they introduced much stricter regulations on motor vehicle emissions.
[quote=“headhonchoII”]Yep, if only Taiwan recognized the problem in the first place as something that is island wide. If only they understood that motor vehicles are a very large part of the problem as well as industry.
It’s 2014 and Im very disappointed to still see the 10 million+ scooters being driven everywhere let alone the numbers of cars on the roads.
They keep blaming China or showing pollution china but ignoring the homegrown pollution in Taiwan.
Dealing with Chinese pollution would help but Taiwan needs to get its shit together and stop ignoring its own backwardness in this regard.
Tokyos pollution levels have decreased significantly since about 10 years ago when they introduced much stricter regulations on motor vehicle emissions.[/quote]
But it’s so easy to dismiss the pollution as Chinese pollution.
Decreasing the number of vehicles or stricter regulations would obviously help but the first step needs to be actually enforcing the regulations. There are so many vehicles with expired registration that won’t pass emissions but they just keep puffing blue smoke. There’s a program where you can take a photo of an illegal scooter but it’s clearly not a priority.