Thailand Air Pollution - Nowhere To Hide

[GeorgeCross]

seriously is there anywhere in Thailand not affected?!

 

even Phuket now which was in the red when i woke up but is starting to drop back now.

[CharlieH]

Not so bad up here in Phetchabun province  as it averages around 80,  today 95 but is nearly always "moderate". It has been down to 60 at times.

Depending on which way the wind is blowing, literally !

 

Guess that's why Khao kor up here gets so many visitors from Bangkok.

[khwaibah]

45 minutes ago, GeorgeCross said:

seriously is there anywhere in Thailand not affected?!

 

 Not in Surin.

Edited January 17, 2020 by khwaibah

[ThomasThBKK]

Everything is horrible in Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

 

Most fires are coming from Cambodia and Vietnam it seems and all the junk is going over here.

 

 

[URMySunshine]

Hat Yai is good , green in fact. Going there from smoky Jomtien on Monday for the foreseeable also got business to do so is fortuitous. Worse I've ever known it and have been coming for over 24 years. If they don't sort it out and fast then next year the missus will come for a month to do family stuff but otherwise I'm out. View from the condo over to Bang Saray today - obscured by smoke. 

[Assurancetourix]

43 minutes ago, GeorgeCross said:

even Phuket now which was in the red when i woke up but is starting to drop back now.

And about Ranong where is living our POTY 2019 ?

 

I hope her earthworm farm won't die from the pollution 

[Kwasaki]

47 minutes ago, GeorgeCross said:

seriously is there anywhere in Thailand not affected?!

Islands allegedly, I wouldn't' call Phuket an island as such.

[URMySunshine]

4 minutes ago, Assurancetourix said:

And about Ranong where is living our POTY 2019 ?

 

I hope her earthworm farm won't die from the pollution 

Ranong Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups

117^*US AQI

 

[Airalee]

A little out of the way...

 

[Elkski]

It's sad when we consider under AQI 100 ok.  Really anything over 50 is taking years off our lives.  Perhaps as much as 5%.   I've read way be shortening our lives by as much as 5 years.   But how can thos ever be proven?  It cant so no punitive damages will ever be awarded. 

[Assurancetourix]

7 minutes ago, Elkski said:

It's sad when we consider under AQI 100 ok.  Really anything over 50 is taking years off our lives.  Perhaps as much as 5%.   I've read way be shortening our lives by as much as 5 years.   But how can thos ever be proven?  It cant so no punitive damages will ever be awarded. 

I know it has nothing to do with air quality, but I have also read that working all your night life would reduce your life expectancy by ten years.
I worked day and night for 40 years;
when you're an international trucker, you don't do 40-hour weeks;
well, 40 hours during the day and almost as much at night. 

 

and sometimes much more; when I was driving touring coaches for a company that only worked with people from the entertainment industry, music, cinema; it was much more than 80 hours a week .

 

 

[Assurancetourix]

I say that, I'm not writing anything ..
Look at the city of Hue in Vietnam ...
It will not please the TAT 

 

[ThomasThBKK]

5 minutes ago, Assurancetourix said:

I say that, I'm not writing anything ..
Look at the city of Hue in Vietnam ...
It will not please the TAT 

 

 

Here's real data. It's horrible.

 

Don't trust gov run vietnamese stations lol.... ACINQ works only as a source in non corrupt countries.

 

https://www.airvisual.com/vietnam/tinh-thua-thien-hue/hue

[Assurancetourix]

11 minutes ago, ThomasThBKK said:

ACINQ works only as a source in non corrupt countries.

So it cannot work in Thailand ? 

[ThomasThBKK]

3 minutes ago, Assurancetourix said:

So it cannot work in Thailand ? 

 

No, that's why everyone else here is using airvisual and the nasa fire maps......

 

It's actually really not working: https://aqicn.org/city/vietnam/hue/

 

NO DATA.

 

have anything else intelligent to add here?

Edited January 17, 2020 by ThomasThBKK

[Assurancetourix]

1 minute ago, ThomasThBKK said:

NO DATA.

 

have anything else intelligent to ad here?

Yes,
I know Hue city very well;
I lived there in the 90s;
I went back there in 2007 to see my old Vietnamese friends.
And I will go back again ..
this city is really special; it is a town in the countryside by a pretty river: Song Huong;
there is only one real factory: the Huda brewery on the road to the beach ...
and I never saw the farmers there burning their rice fields like those of Thailand.

[Assurancetourix]

7 minutes ago, ThomasThBKK said:

No, that's why everyone else here is using airvisual and the nasa fire maps......

 

It's actually really not working

By cons for Da Nang which is 110 km south of Hue, it works with a lowercase 33;
therefore good air quality;
or Da nang is a very big city with a lot of industries and an international airport which is right in the city center.

 

[ThomasThBKK]

9 minutes ago, Assurancetourix said:

By cons for Da Nang which is 110 km south of Hue, it works with a lowercase 33;
therefore good air quality;
or Da nang is a very big city with a lot of industries and an international airport which is right in the city center.

 

Why not use Airvisual?

 

https://www.airvisual.com/vietnam/da-nang

 

 

[ThomasThBKK]

22 minutes ago, Assurancetourix said:

and I never saw the farmers there burning their rice fields like those of Thailand.

https://vietnamnews.vn/environment/450829/ha-noi-wants-to-end-straw-burning-on-fields-by-2020.html

 

Ok, but the vietnamese government sees rice farmers burning everywhere. 

[Assurancetourix]

2 minutes ago, ThomasThBKK said:

https://vietnamnews.vn/environment/450829/ha-noi-wants-to-end-straw-burning-on-fields-by-2020.html

 

Ok, but the vietnamese government sees rice farmers burning everywhere. 

 

There is no worse blind than one who refuses to see.
I'm talking about Hue which is 800 km south of Hanoi.

Rice is mainly grown on two plains:
the southern one in the Mekong Delta and the northern one in the Red River Delta, roughly from Hanoi to Haiphong.

Hue is located in a narrow strip of land between the sea and Laos.
The rice fields are tiny.

Concerning the two organizations which give eccentric figures; I think that we cannot trust either of the two because their data are in contradiction with each other;
it reminds me of the figures from the last demonstration in Paris; 30,000 demonstrators according to the Police and 300,000 according to the organizers. 

[ThomasThBKK]

2 hours ago, Assurancetourix said:

 

There is no worse blind than one who refuses to see.
I'm talking about Hue which is 800 km south of Hanoi.

Rice is mainly grown on two plains:
the southern one in the Mekong Delta and the northern one in the Red River Delta, roughly from Hanoi to Haiphong.

Hue is located in a narrow strip of land between the sea and Laos.
The rice fields are tiny.

Concerning the two organizations which give eccentric figures; I think that we cannot trust either of the two because their data are in contradiction with each other;
it reminds me of the figures from the last demonstration in Paris; 30,000 demonstrators according to the Police and 300,000 according to the organizers. 

It seems your view is blinded by all the haze.

 

It does absolutely not matter where someone burns, the wind brings it everywhere here.

 

Same reason NZ get's all haze from Australian, wind doesn't give a damn about borders.

Someone burns in cambodia and you get that haze in vietnam if the wind goes that way - it's like magic... 

 

Quote

Concerning the two organizations which give eccentric figures; I think that we cannot trust either of the two because their data are in contradiction with each other;

Rubbish, tons of universities and home users have AirVisual meters installed.

The problem with AQI is they have only very little meters installed and are often offline - or update unregulary. Extremely small sample size, but don't worry even they predict horrible air pollution in da nang for the next days.

 

Your meter updated the last time 13 HOURS AGO IN DA NANG - maybe everything was ok then AT THAT POINT WHERE THE METER IS INSTALLED.

 

2 hours ago, Assurancetourix said:

There is no worse blind than one who refuses to see.

 

I can only give that back, while shaking my head.

 

 

[Moonlover]

6 hours ago, GeorgeCross said:

seriously is there anywhere in Thailand not affected?

Pla Pak, 15 kms to my east, AQI 53. Sakon Nakhon, 20 kms to my west, AQ 55.

 

Peaks of the hills 15 kms to my south clearly visible.

 

No complaints about the air quality in the north east of Issan at all.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

15 minutes ago, Moonlover said:

Pla Pak, 15 kms to my east, AQI 53. Sakon Nakhon, 20 kms to my west, AQ 55.

 

Peaks of the hills 15 kms to my south clearly visible.

 

No complaints about the air quality in the north east of Issan at all.

 

There are few if any Thai government monitoring stations for Issan that measure PM2.5 there, AFAIK...

 

One of the few is in Khon Kaen, which isn't looking very good right now at all...

 

There are some private sensors for Sakon Nakhon, which show pretty decent right now, but Udon Thani in contrast has AQIs in the 120-130 range, 

 

 

[Silencer]

Today is the first time I have seen a haze in Samui so something is headed our way from the East. Although I can't find reliable data, one site said Samui was 60+ today which would be much higher than usual.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

12 minutes ago, Silencer said:

Today is the first time I have seen a haze in Samui so something is headed our way from the East. Although I can't find reliable data, one site said Samui was 60+ today which would be much higher than usual.

 

https://www.airvisual.com/thailand/surat-thani/ko-samui

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

1 hour ago, Moonlover said:

Pla Pak, 15 kms to my east, AQI 53. Sakon Nakhon, 20 kms to my west, AQ 55.

 

Learned something new today... On the AirVisual website, when I searched for Sakon Nakhon, it produced an AQI value... But when I looked on the AirVisual website map function for SN, it didn't show any sensor there... And the reason I discovered is -- there is NO sensor there....

 

Instead, for places where there aren't government or privately operated PM2.5 sensors reporting real world data, AirVisual uses "modeled" data estimates that their system produces...  And when it's a modeled AQI number instead of an actual sensor data value, they note the AQI value with an ASTERISK, which I never knew or understood before.

 

Thus for Sakon Nakhon, which apparently has no actual sensor data, AirVisual produces this info:

 

 

 

So that's why there's no value reported for Sakon Nakhon on the AirVisual mapping, because it only reports actual sensor locations and data.... Whereas the website adds their estimates for locations where no actual sensors are in use.

 

Personally, I would tend to rely more on the accuracy of actual sensors in places like Khon Kaen where there's a government sensor or Udon Thani where there's a private sensor vs the places where AirVisual is using modeled AQI estimates.

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

33 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

https://www.airvisual.com/thailand/surat-thani/ko-samui

 

 

And the same is true I learned for the Ko Samui AQI value AirVisual reports for Ko Samui --  a modeled estimate and not any actual sensor reading.

 

[ThomasThBKK]

1 hour ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

Learned something new today... On the AirVisual website, when I searched for Sakon Nakhon, it produced an AQI value... But when I looked on the AirVisual website map function for SN, it didn't show any sensor there... And the reason I discovered is -- there is NO sensor there....

 

Instead, for places where there aren't government or privately operated PM2.5 sensors reporting real world data, AirVisual uses "modeled" data estimates that their system produces...  And when it's a modeled AQI number instead of an actual sensor data value, they note the AQI value with an ASTERISK, which I never knew or understood before.

 

Thus for Sakon Nakhon, which apparently has no actual sensor data, AirVisual produces this info:

 

 

 

So that's why there's no value reported for Sakon Nakhon on the AirVisual mapping, because it only reports actual sensor locations and data.... Whereas the website adds their estimates for locations where no actual sensors are in use.

 

Personally, I would tend to rely more on the accuracy of actual sensors in places like Khon Kaen where there's a government sensor or Udon Thani where there's a private sensor vs the places where AirVisual is using modeled AQI estimates.

 

Yeah thats quite inaccurate, but better than nothing i guess.

 

Tried that on Koh Chang over new year, airvisual showed AQI around 60-70, had my xiaom pm2.5 meter there with me which showed mostly around 30-40 AQI, but a few times over 150 AQI - i assume some locals there burned at that time, not sure what but sometimes they burn trash.

 

Guess it's usually a bit better on the islands than airvisual might suggest.

[Moonlover]

1 hour ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

2 hours ago, Moonlover said:

Pla Pak, 15 kms to my east, AQI 53. Sakon Nakhon, 20 kms to my west, AQ 55.

 

1 hour ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

Learned something new today... On the AirVisual website, when I searched for Sakon Nakhon, it produced an AQI value... But when I looked on the AirVisual website map function for SN, it didn't show any sensor there... And the reason I discovered is -- there is NO sensor there....

 

Instead, for places where there aren't government or privately operated PM2.5 sensors reporting real world data, AirVisual uses "modeled" data estimates that their system produces...  And when it's a modeled AQI number instead of an actual sensor data value, they note the AQI value with an ASTERISK, which I never knew or understood before.

 

Thus for Sakon Nakhon, which apparently has no actual sensor data, AirVisual produces this info:

 

 

 

So that's why there's no value reported for Sakon Nakhon on the AirVisual mapping, because it only reports actual sensor locations and data.... Whereas the website adds their estimates for locations where no actual sensors are in use.

 

Personally, I would tend to rely more on the accuracy of actual sensors in places like Khon Kaen where there's a government sensor or Udon Thani where there's a private sensor vs the places where AirVisual is using modeled AQI estimates.

 

Thanks for that. I'm quite impressed with your doggedness in discovering that. I have to admit I'd never given it a second's thought!

 

I live quite a distance from either of the 'official' monitoring stations at Khon Kaen or Udon Thani and I live rurally, so city readings would give, for me,  a very false impression.

 

So I use a combination of the modelized data (as I now know it to be) and what my eyes and nose tell me. I take a walk in the country every morning and if I'm happy with what I'm breathing, that's good enough for me. It is quite rare for me not to be content with the air and it's interesting to note that the data I see on AirVisual is always in step with my instinctual impressions.

 

So I'm happy to go along with the 'modelized data'. Better to have computer model than no data at all. I could, of course buy my own monitor and if I had any concerns I would do so. But I don't.

 

 

 

Edited January 17, 2020 by Moonlover

[GeorgeCross]

today's update.. are you freaking kidding me??!!!!

 

 

thank god for air purifiers..

 

Edited January 18, 2020 by GeorgeCross