Bangkok Air Pollution

[Bunbobi]

i am living in Hong Kong and i am dealing air pollution every single day and the air is causing cancer, so the air quality there is much milder than where i am.

 

[mommysboy]

13 hours ago, Bunbobi said:

i am living in Hong Kong and i am dealing air pollution every single day and the air is causing cancer, so the air quality there is much milder than where i am.

 

The AQI in Hong Kong is showing 70 at the moment and it's been like that for the past few days, whereas Bangkok is 165.

 

So what if the air is worse somewhere else: that doesn't make Bangkok air any safer, does it?

[brewsterbudgen]

Horrible again in Bangkok today, after a brief respite.

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[MaxYakov]

4 hours ago, brewsterbudgen said:

Horrible again in Bangkok today, after a brief respite.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk
 

Yes, it doesn't appear we can blame the fires this time (meteorological?). There is last night's 4-hour period of > 150 (1800-2200) and then it goes moderate from there (< 150 and two hours of < 100). Weird. I hope this is not the "new normal"!

 

At 1335 today (Of course the RTAQ is 1 1/2 hours behind - hardly Real Time, as its name states):

 

[ExpatOilWorker]

14 minutes ago, MaxYakov said:

Yes, it doesn't appear we can blame the fires this time (meteorological?). There is last night's 4-hour period of > 150 (1800-2200) and then it goes moderate from there (< 150 and two hours of < 100). Weird. I hope this is not the "new normal"!

 

At 1335 today (Of course the RTAQ is 1 1/2 hours behind - hardly Real Time, as its name states):

 

 

I just came back from a road trip in Isaan and the whole area is covered in hanging smoke and you see burning or burned out fields everywhere. They jokingly call it "black rain" when black ashes fall from the sky while a nearby sugar cane field goes up in flames. Burning is the main course of the smog, even in Bangkok.

I was reading 65-85 micro g/m3 with the SNDWAY.

[MaxYakov]

Ahah! It appears that the RTAQ site's AQ display is indeed real-time. The two-day bar graph can be up to 2-3 hours behind so it is not real-time (some kind of batch operation). Looking at the times I'd say this recent pollution is Bangkok activity related rather than fires, since it appears to have occurred during peak commute hours and cleared from 2200 last night until 0500 this morning. That doesn't strike me as fire activity, especially in Issan unless something meteorological happened in those seven hours from last night until this morning.

 

From my balcony, I can look across Queen Sirikit Park and then across Lumphini Park beyond that to the buildings in the Sala Daeng area and and (sort of) confirm the RTAQ index value. Right now it's as bad as I've ever seen it - the Sala Daeng buildings are very obscured (hazed-out????). The RTAQ index is now 161 at 1430. Now, where did I put that mask!

 

 

 

 

Edited February 13, 2019 by MaxYakov

[JimmyJ]

If only this item included AQI it would be perfect even though it's 3 times the price (and that's used):

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPey1z0pvGA

[DaveInSukhumvit]

On 2/13/2019 at 1:45 PM, MaxYakov said:

Yes, it doesn't appear we can blame the fires this time (meteorological?). There is last night's 4-hour period of > 150 (1800-2200) and then it goes moderate from there (< 150 and two hours of < 100). Weird. I hope this is not the "new normal"!

I have been watching the wind direction these past few days as the primary indicator of pollution levels.  Today wind is from the South (ocean breeze in BBK) and the AQI was 70ish in morning.

Yesterday (Wednesday 13 Feb), wind switched in the early morning from South to North ... and almost immediately the AQI jumped from 70 (South wind) to 150 (North wind).

 

The point is wind direction makes a big difference in BKK AQI.  You can view wind direction on aqicn.org and airvisual.com/earth

I know that there are fires around Thailand, but air flow determines the result in BKK.  When there is no airflow (AKA inversion or stagnant air).  We see local pollution sources.  For example: the days before and after the BKK school shutdown,  we saw local nighttime burning active .... then switched off.  

[edwardandtubs]

Wow. Very good air quality right now in Bangna. Thai Metrological Office is reporting an AQI of 17 for pm2.5, exactly the same as my Sndway which is averaging about 4 mcg. Great to get a really good session in the gym with air quality this good.

[edwardandtubs]

Good to see 3M pm2.5 masks in the local Big C Mini. Not much demand for them right now though.

[Pib]

Air quality sure has improved over the last few weeks....and especially over the last 48 hours.   I live in western Bangkok (Khet Talingchan) and when I fired-up my SNDWAY SW825 PM2.5 Indicator this morning at 10:15am I got a reading of 0 to 1 inside my air conditioned home and around 6 outside.  This PM2.5 reading is in sync with some other person's reading in my area (see below which is about 2KM away from me as the crow flies and in my khet) who had a 5.7 reading on their more expensive Air Visual indicator. 

 

And after using the SNDWY 825 indicator as shown below for a month or so now I like it for the occasional readings I take.  But one thing I have noticed if you live in an air conditioned environment if you take the indicator outside you should give it 5 to 10 minutes to stabilize to the outside temp otherwise your PM2.5 readings may be 10 to 15% high.    This can happen in reverse also, but not as pronounced, when going from a hotter environment like outside to inside to an air conditioned area.   

 

Like this morning when taking the inside and outside readings, since the indicator was already stabilized to the inside temp of around 26C the readings I was getting didn't change after letting it take readings for 1 to 10 minutes....it kept giving me a 0 to 1 reading.   Now when I took it outside were the outside temp was 30C after around 15 seconds to 1 minute I was getting a reading of around 10....but as it stabilized to the outside temp you could see it coming down where after 5 to 10 minutes it was hanging around 6.   

 

Now I know the difference between 10 and 6 is more than 10-15% but in using the indicator during times of much higher PM2.5 levels (like a few weeks ago) it seemed when doing the inside and outside tests the readings would be about 10-15% until it stabilized to the surrounding temp. 

 

I have also done tests where before turning the indicator on I let it first stabilize to the surrounding temp...then turn it on....and it that case I would not get a 10-15% higher reading....the reading at 1 minute and 10 minutes showed little difference.  So for the most accurate PM2.5 reading be sure your SNDWAY SW825 has had time to sabalize to the temperature.

 

https://www.airvisual.com/thailand/bangkok/taling-chan/data-entry-group

 

SNDWAY Mode SW825

[MaxYakov]

The holiday has the vehicular traffic very minimal and it shows in the overnight and late morning RTAQ readings:

 

 

 

[Pib]

Been good breezes and some light rain also.  But I think it because the wind is now coming back...blowing a lot of pollution away from Bangkok.  The weather is changing with more winds and clouds very noticeable over the last week....we are now getting close to the hottest time of they year...that is Mar-May....the weather is changing.

 

 

[uhuh]

I don't need a SNDWAY.

I just look out of my window (high floor) and visibility has never been so good since the beginning of December.

 

Just to make sure its true i verify with the website and yes, the reality isn't fake! The internet says it.

 

 

 

 

 

[MaxYakov]

3 hours ago, uhuh said:

I don't need a SNDWAY.

I just look out of my window (high floor) and visibility has never been so good since the beginning of December.

 

Just to make sure its true i verify with the website and yes, the reality isn't fake! The internet says i

 

You verified your window's (high floor) visibility on a website?! Which website was that? 

[ExpatOilWorker]

2 hours ago, MaxYakov said:

You verified your window's (high floor) visibility on a website?! Which website was that? 

www world wide window

[Pib]

6 hours ago, uhuh said:

I don't need a SNDWAY.

I just look out of my window (high floor) and visibility has never been so good since the beginning of December.

 

Just to make sure its true i verify with the website and yes, the reality isn't fake! The internet says it.

 

You might want to close that window as the recent high PM2.5 pollution level seems to be causing you some false euphoria. 

[balo]

We've been in the green zone for almost a week now here in Pattaya. From 15 to 35 PM 2.5. Very happy right now.

[SooKee]

Didn't last long :(


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[TallGuyJohninBKK]

2 hours ago, SooKee said:

Didn't last long ????
 

 

The air in BKK is medium yellow moderate right now, and has been either green or low to moderate yellow for most of the past week -- a time that usually is BKK's worst smog season with normal levels this time of year routinely in the red unhealthy levels.

 

The most interesting issue about this is why the sudden and unlikely change. Could be partly weather related with the pickup in breezes lately. But I also wonder if the powers that be finally felt enough heat to do something (other than the useless fire hose water spraying) to cut down on pollution emissions.

 

Edited February 21, 2019 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Got an email from Big C Online lately advertising this PM2.5 sensor. Don't know anything about it, never seen it before. Lately, a lot of the Thai retailers have been pushing smog related products... When there's a buck to be made....

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Power Buy's also been getting into the act on this. The email I received from them today advertises Samsung inverter air cons claiming to filter PM2.5 and an electric clothes dryer claiming to remove "pollutants" from clothes because they're not going to be hung outside....  Hmmmm....

 

The air con thing is interesting though. I have no idea what kind of filtration these kinds of units provide and what's required to maintain them. But it's long occurred to me, with air cons already running a lot here in hot climates, why couldn't HEPA filter technology be incorporated into regular air cons vs. having to run and pay for a second, separate air purifier unit.

 

 

 

[edwardandtubs]

The technology looks extremely unconvincing to me. How does this normal looking filter manage to get the pm2.5 to stick to it?

 

 

[xylophone]

29 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Power Buy's also been getting into the act on this. The email I received from them today advertises Samsung inverter air cons claiming to filter PM2.5 and an electric clothes dryer claiming to remove "pollutants" from clothes because they're not going to be hung outside....  Hmmmm....

 

The air con thing is interesting though. I have no idea what kind of filtration these kinds of units provide and what's required to maintain them. But it's long occurred to me, with air cons already running a lot here in hot climates, why couldn't HEPA filter technology be incorporated into regular air cons vs. having to run and pay for a second, separate air purifier unit.

 

 

 

Check this out........seems like one can buy PM 2.5 filters for existing aircon units: 

 

https://www.amazon.in/3M-Non-Woven-Electrostatic-Purifying-Filter/dp/B07D6YLBTH 

[SooKee]

2 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

The air in BKK is medium yellow moderate right now, and has been either green or low to moderate yellow for most of the past week -- a time that usually is BKK's worst smog season with normal levels this time of year routinely in the red unhealthy levels.

 

The most interesting issue about this is why the sudden and unlikely change. Could be partly weather related with the pickup in breezes lately. But I also wonder if the powers that be finally felt enough heat to do something (other than the useless fire hose water spraying) to cut down on pollution emissions.

 

That's now, 80 I can live with (would prefer the 30-40 of the last few days), was back up to 165 here at around 3pm though with readings on Air Visual from Soi 20 / 22, like I say, didn't last long ????.  Traffic's back I guess.  Be interesting to see how the remainder of the month plays out.

Edited February 21, 2019 by SooKee

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

2 hours ago, SooKee said:

That's now, 80 I can live with (would prefer the 30-40 of the last few days), was back up to 165 here at around 3pm though with readings on Air Visual from Soi 20 / 22, like I say, didn't last long ????.  Traffic's back I guess.  Be interesting to see how the remainder of the month plays out.

 

Not sure about the reading you're citing... I don't think it is/was reflective of the day at large.

 

For example, when I look at the hourly history of Air Visual's reporting for Pathum Wan for today, I see nothing but yellow moderate readings for the entire day. Same basic results for Chula Hospital and the NIST sensors around Asoke.

 

 

The image below likewise shows the hourly readings for Chula being entirely yellow for the entire day Thursday, and for most of Wednesday as well.

 

 

 

Edited February 21, 2019 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

2 hours ago, xylophone said:

Check this out........seems like one can buy PM 2.5 filters for existing aircon units: 

 

https://www.amazon.in/3M-Non-Woven-Electrostatic-Purifying-Filter/dp/B07D6YLBTH 

 

I believe, that's pretty much the same as the red Filtrete sheets sold in the stores here, which can be placed over traditional air con filters. But they provide nowhere near HEPA filtering capability.

 

In fact, interestingly, if you look at the product details for the item you've linked to above, it says the following:

 

Quote

Proven to capture 83% PM2.5 from indoor air in just one hour of use.

Quote

Designed to cover around 80% surface of existing mesh of most models of ACs (to balance air flow and PM2.5 capture rate) – you may cut it smaller as per your AC size if you feel it is reducing air flow by large extent

 

The official HEPA standard, by comparison, is removing at least 99.97% of airborne particles 0.3 micrometers (µm) in diameter.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

2 hours ago, edwardandtubs said:

The technology looks extremely unconvincing to me. How does this normal looking filter manage to get the pm2.5 to stick to it?

 

 

 

Samsung appears to be claiming 99% filtration capability of PM2.5 within 100 minutes of operation in a 30 sq meter room.

 

Quote

Reduce small dust 
Over 99% 
Ultra Wide PM2.5 Filter 
 
Tiny particles in the air may creep into your lungs. PM2.5 Filter helps keep the air clean. By trapping small dust particles up to 99% in 100 minutes * It also covers 100% of the inlet Therefore filtering all air entering the machine completely

 

https://www.samsung.com/za/air-conditioners/wall-mount-ar12mspxbwknfa/

Edited February 21, 2019 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[MaxYakov]

Ironically, the Provincial Health Office at Loei doesn't seem to be doing that great this week (local phenom or equipment problem?):

 

[MaxYakov]

Anybody have any idea what might be going on with the Ratburana Post Office area (other than its close proximity to a couple expressways - Google Maps????

 

 

 

 

Edited February 22, 2019 by MaxYakov