On high alert
It's particulately bad
We’ve had a feeling that this has been a bad few months for pollution in London and beyond but now we’ve had a chance to properly review the data and see what is going on. We’ve been reviewing the levels at our Brixton monitoring node, as well as comparing with our personal AirTrack* data.
While daily breaches of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels continue at their rather shocking level, particulate matter (PM2.5) is the new story here. Last year there were maximum five breaches per month; in the same period this year, just shy of half of each month sees a daily breach. What’s going on?
We’ve been aware of high pollution episodes over the past few months. Early January saw a spike that put Louise off her 10k training plan (some excuse…) Then in early February we put out another alert via our Strava club. We don’t recall seeing any formal public alerts, but in mid March, the BBC and Imperial College issued this. However, it looks from the data like the actual peak was actually a week prior to this - around 10 March. We thought it was interesting that this alert focused on emission-reducing behaviour such as not leaving car engines idling (which should not happen at any time) rather than health protection. Conspiracy theorists could make a lot of why the 10th of each month looks bad!
The same spikes are visible in Louise’s AirTrack feed, with runs/cycles on 23-24 March (PM2.5 of 33 migrograms per cubic metre), 10 March (PM2.5 of 71) and 10 February (PM2.5 of 35) - just to pick a few examples. Friend of this blog, Simon Birkett, did put out alerts via his Clean Air in London service, but (we think) mainly on X and we have been part of the X-odus! (As an aside, we think the significant spike on 26 January shown above left must have been something very local rather than a city-wide problem).
Acquis for the AQIS
So why are these data not getting across to the public? This takes us to the review of the Air Quality Information Service, which we flagged a few weeks ago. Sometimes it pays to be slightly slow, as Global Action Plan have done a neat summary, so we don’t have to! The Review’s members include friends of this blog such as Andrew Grieve and we congratulate the team on the thorough coverage. As well as recommendations on public awareness, resources for health professionals and education, and inclusion of long- as well as short-term risks, these caught our eye:
updating advice for people undertaking physical activity to reduce personal exposure rather than discourage physical activity;
more granular data at spatial and temporal levels for behaviour modification;
taking into account the inequality aspects of air pollution exposure in messaging and choice of channels;
for vulnerable groups, closer monitoring of symptoms in the days following episodes of high pollution.
More than hot air
There’s a lot going on internationally at the moment too. We might have to save some of this for a future week, but just in case you are looking for Easter reading, some major policy updates have come out recently. There are also a lot of new studies on health being published, particularly cognitive health. We will get back to all this in coming weeks! For now:
a review of the World Health Organisation second global conference on air pollution and health by Clean Air Fund, including the headline measure to reduce the health impacts of air pollution by 50% by 2040, compared to 2015;
a new World Bank report on how to mobilise action and resources for clean air;
a nice new explainer by Our World in Data team (including Hannah Ritchie).
App-lying ourselves!
And once you’ve digested all this, please stretch your legs and get your heart rate up with our 5k run/walk/cycle on 14 April at 12.30pm to celebrate the launch of our AirTrack app! We will be doing it on London’s Southbank but you can join from anywhere, as long as you are tracking your air pollution exposure! We will give more detail next week.
*Eagle eyed amongst you may note we’ve launched a new version of our website for Air Aware Labs. Feedback welcome!
I said this abut 'its worse' [for brunswick / russell sq] to breathe london a few weeks ago - and was told its seasonal and so not really worse ... ???
To what should one attribute the persistence of the unusually high concentrations of PM2.5 over the last few months? (Air Quality England data suggests that high concentrations are widespread across much of England.)