Air Quality in Beijing

China

Day 4 - Air Quality

I took a late-night flight back from Dalian to Beijing, landing in the smog sometime before midnight. The forecast for today was for bright sunshine and a high of 37°C, so I was curious as to how Beijing would look. In short, visibility today has been great.

Practically clear!

Compared to when I arrived, the visibility today is fantastic. The scorching-hot sun casts strong shadows, and people gather under the trees and bridges for shelter. So, conditions are favourable. The weather looks good. We don't have visual evidence of heavy pollution though there are still many old cars, and many factories surrounding Beijing.

A plane landing in Beijing

The visual side of the pollution story is not the only concern for cities. High levels of NOx and volatile organic compounds (VOC) combined with the strong shortwave (UV) sunlight, create ozone. The ozone layer protects us from harmful UV-B rays from the Sun, but that's at high altitudes. Down in the city-streets, ozone does little by the way of protection. Instead, ozone causes severe respiratory problems. Breathing ozone can trigger a variety of health problems including chest pain, coughing, throat irritation, and congestion. It can worsen bronchitis, emphysema, and asthma. “Bad” ozone also can reduce lung function and inflame the linings of the lungs. Repeated exposure may permanently scar lung tissue. 

I can't put any measurement data onto the blog, as it needs to go through the proper quality assurance and scientific channels first. I can say that O3 levels in Beijing are extremely high.  If Tokyo is around 50ppb (and wants to reduce it), Beijing is at around 100ppb. For comparison, the remote jungle in Borneo is about 5ppb.

What can be done?

Good question. It all really comes down to policy.  Beijing has shown before, with the Olymipics, that it can reduce its pollution. However, making a long-term commitment to such policies is much harder. Personally, I hope that one day soon Beijing is able to  make the headlines for more than its record-breaking pollution. It's a fantastic place full of lively and fun people. I recommend a visit - just perhaps not in winter.

Haidian District

China

Day 2 - Haidian District

It certainly looks like the Environmental Sciences building

I'm currently here in China for work-related activities, and thus needed to crack on with work early this morning. A 2km walk from my hotel, is the Environmental Sciences building of Tsinghua University, in the heart of the large Haidian district. I always appreciate greenery, especially when said greenery apparently envelopes the man-made structure within.

Up the river

Visibility is as poor as yesterday, and here's why. There is a lot of water vapour in the air, which condenses onto the aerosol particles. The particles thus become a little larger, and scatter light even more. It's almost like being in a very fine cloud. If there were fewer particles, more water may condense onto a given particle and it would fall to the ground as a droplet. Even though we have actually had some rain, there are too many particles to remove in such processes. It's making every photo look as though I've completely messed up the in-camera settings. There is simply just too much scattering - all of these photos are even taken with a circular polariser fitted to the end of my lens! 

The largest lake on the campus

The poor visibility certainly gives the photos a certain "look" . I don't know if it's possible to get instagram in china (it's probably not), but it's not needed in Beijing. All my photos look retro here.

Some Chinese characters are the same in Japan

I can read quite a lot here in Beijing. What I can't read, I either guess or just ignore. The Chinese writing system has changed over the years, and the oldest scriptures are the easiest for me to read, as they are the same characters as used today in Japan. The Chinese have since moved onto simplified scripts, though not in Taiwan.

100 year old shrine

Unlike Japan, and Tokyo in particular, many buildings in Beijing are well over 50 years old. The reason is twofold. Firstly, there are far, far fewer earthquakes here in Beijing than in Japan. And secondly, Beijing wasn't mostly turned to rubble by firebombing from the Allied Forces in WWII.

The original Tsinghua University building

Tsinghua University was founded in 1911. There's an interesting mix of Chinese and American (Jeffersonian) architecture throughout the campus. 

For dinner I ventured into the centre of the Haidian district, in search of noodles.

TUS Park is called "China's Silicon Valley"

It rained again. 

Recharge your car here. Help reduce pollution!

I've not been here long, but I have noticed a few things about the Chinese people:

1. Extremely friendly
2. They don't drink cold water (it's served hot) 
3. They don't stare at foreigners, and will speak to you in Chinese first
4. Completely ignore traffic signals (observe below)

Notice the "red man" sign, and everyone ignoring it

As I was devouring my noodles, a very pleasant chap came and sat down opposite me. He started talking about the weather, probably. I wouldn't know, as he was speaking in Chinese. I only know how to say "hello" and "thank you", so I didn't get very far. It turns out that he studied French in school (as did I), and so we conversed in the best French we could muster. No doubt if an actual french person were nearby they'd cringe in horror, but it got the job done. Surreal. He asked me if I had "QQ". I said no. I said we use Facebook outside of China. He said he didn't know what it was. I'd finally found someone who doesn't know Facebook.

C'est la vie. 

Asian Dust

Asian Dust │ NEX-7 & SEL24F18Z │ 24mm, ISO 400, f/2.8, 1/250, RAW

Not really a pretty picture, but something I wanted to document. This last week, Japan's been sujected to a huge Asian Dust storm, which, quite unsurprisingly, has been plastered all over the news. Of course, Japan and China have such a great history, that the Japanese news is effectively blaming China, and trying to whip up yet more criticism of pollution from China.

Interestingly enough, my current job is to measure pollution. I have either personally installed, or am responsible for, no fewer than 10 different instruments throughout Asia, which measure Black Carbon (BC). It's a rather popular topic at the moment, and it's not hard to find someone with an opinion on the matter. If you're interested, the measurement sites are here:

As a research scientist, I [remotely] collect and [locally] analyse data from these sites, almost every day. That's one of the roles of my job. Anyway, with all this action in the news, and Japanese media blaming China for pollution in Japan, I wonder where their Japanese Toyota or Nissan car was made. China? How about their shiny MacBook Pro? Made in China? Their iPhone? Assembled in China? Hmm..

Anyway, this is the oojamaflip which measures BC. It's called COSMOS, which is quite cute. COSMOS stands for Continuous Soot Monitoring System, which is less cute.

If you want to know more about it, or see some data, I hope to be writing a paper on the subject very soon. No pretty pictures though :(

Moon & Jupiter

Moon & Jupiter │ NEX-7 & Canon NFD 200mm F4 │ 200mm, ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/160, RAW

Considering I live in the centre of Tokyo, I'm still surprised by the clarity with which I can see the stars, and how the moon illuminates the clouds from the pitch-black. I'm from a rural area in the UK, so starry nights are not a stranger to me. What is strange, however, is that Tokyo with its neons, skyscrapers and apartments, can have skies with such clarity. Sometimes I feel as though I could reach the moon. On this particular night, Jupiter joined the party (top left).

It's linked, of course, to science. It's extremely cold and dry here at the moment. Moisture in the air makes dust, soot, and other airborne particles grow as they take on water. Their new size then scatters (and absorbs) light in many ways, creating fogs, haze, and generally unfavourable clear-sky conditions. Japan is cold and dry ( < 10% humidity sometimes) in the winter, and so the particles don't grow. Electric public transport is so common here in Tokyo, that cars are relatively few and far between. Tokyo is about as polluted as some rural parts of the UK, in a particulate sense. Tokyo makes up for it with light pollution though... on a damp morning or evening, you've no hope of seeing anything other than the reflection of the city above your head.

Can you see Orion?