August 12, 2008
Beijing Olympics: Improved conditions
The Olympics is providing its usual stories of expected success (more golds for Michael Phelps), overachieving underdogs (Men's U.S. gymnastics B-team), and beaten-by-a-microsecond (swimmer Katie Hoff's loss to England's Rebecca Adlington). Here in Malaysia, everyone is watching badminton player Lee Chong Wei, who is the country's best chance to win its first ever gold medal; he advanced to the quarter-finals today.
Meanwhile, the air quality seemed to improve a bit today, at least relatively. The Associated Press' air quality website reported 162 ug/m3 PM10, much lower than the 600 ug/m3 reported on 10 August. NASA MODIS Terra showed Beijing and northeast China under mostly cloudy skies today (left). However, looking at both the true color image and the aerosol optical depth data (processing courtesy NOAA NESDIS and Hai Zhang), we can see that there is intense haze south of Beijing. I expect conditions around China will remain variable, depending on weather and level of industrial activity.
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