August 9, 2008
The Olympic competitions have started; the haze thickens
Unfortunately, China's efforts to reduce the pollution locally in Beijing are not sufficient to reduce the haze which is being transported from the southwest of the city. In the image on the left, the MODIS Aqua image shows that haze across the region is widespread and the flow (from the Hysplit trajectories at 500m, 1500m and 3000m altitude) is still coming mostly from the south-southwest. The result is that the haze from that region (shown in the right AERONET image from XiangHe) is thick (> 3 AOD). It is early evening when this is being posted and NBC is reporting that it is still 93oF in Beijing.
A report from the Xinhuanet press service quotes a government official as saying "Maybe the fog makes it not a nice picture to look at the Bird's Nest or the Water Cube, but the monitor south of the two stadiums reads the API at 80 today. It conveyed a strong message that our efforts had paid off since August," he said. An API rating of 51-100 (level II) means good quality. The official air quality readings are shown in the link.
There is a air quality blog being run from Beijing.
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On the opening day, CALIPSO passed over China and the images shows that the haze is confined to a layer which is generally less than 3000 meters thick (red box, with Beijing's latitude indicated by an arrow).
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