Pollution In Lampang As Well?

[Priceless]

My sincere apologies to 'anonymouse' and all others who are choking on the numbers

My problem is that when somebody comes up with a "home-cooked" analysis and claims to disprove the statistics, s/he might mislead somebody into believing this "analysis". That might eventually in turn lead somebody to stay away from Chiang Mai and miss out on a wonderful experience.

/ Priceless

[Ulysses G.]

Thanks Priceless!

[anonymouse]

My sincere apologies to 'anonymouse' and all others who are choking on the numbers

My problem is that when somebody comes up with a "home-cooked" analysis and claims to disprove the statistics, s/he might mislead somebody into believing this "analysis". That might eventually in turn lead somebody to stay away from Chiang Mai and miss out on a wonderful experience.

/ Priceless

No need for apologies at all , It's just me being a lightweight , keep up the good work

[Mapguy]

It's all got a little technical for my little brain now, that's me out of the pollution threads until next year,

Adios

Hang in there! Don't go away perplexed!

[Mapguy]

Hang in there, people! The discussion has taken a turn for the better, albeit a bit much from time to time.

Hang in there, Priceless, just please understand that we do do agree on some things.

Thank you, CMX, for your timely entry into the discussion in (as I dimly recall) somewhat different style.

Think you, "Ape Man." But writing in English, as you occasionally do, is helpful for us all! Are your posts a measure of how many glasses of wine you consume, or how many bananas?!

Cheers, all! Yeah, this stuff gets technical if you get reasonably serious!

The important thing is that the air stinks a lot of the time, and it is not good for anyone. Something wrong with trying to deal with that?

[MESmith]

Who needs all this data anyway?  I can look out of my windows and see the smoke, I can open my windows & smell the smoke.   I can drive my kid to school & see smoke plumes all around.  The "burning season" that people talk about doesn't actually exist.  The people here burn 365 days a year.  I don't honestly think that they believe the day is complete without setting fire to something.   There's a brown haze visible to the naked eye.  Maybe I should clean my windows, truck & house.  I do, but I still see this filth.  From my house on a clear day it's possible to see Doi Suthep, Doi Inthanon, the hills on the eastern side of the valley.   When you can see so far, the brown crappy haze below the mountains is very visible.  The plumes of smoke are very visible.   They are <deleted> everywhere.  I persuaded the wife to phone the orbator to report a fire.  They were having dinner, so couldn't send the fire truck, but they explained to her, that there was a 2000bt fine for people burning.  They told her the people have been told not to burn, blah, blah, blah.   When she passed on the content of the phonecall, I asked her why don't they get off their <deleted> asses & drive around, putting out fires , fining people etc, rather than expecting people to rat on their neighbours?  Her look said it all, "expect them to actually do something, why? they've done their job, they've told them not to burn"

[chiangmaiexpat]

Who needs all this data anyway? I can look out of my windows and see the smoke, I can open my windows & smell the smoke. I can drive my kid to school & see smoke plumes all around.

That's what I wished to express. You don't really need a degree in statistics to tell that the air in Chiang Mai is nasty. My point is that the PCD website does not convey this. The PCD still displays a green icon on their map for Chiang Mai. According to them, the air here is good to moderate and it's worse in Bangkok, Khon Khaen and Rayong. However, we don't hear people from these places complaining about fires and smoke. This does not reflect reality and IMHO disproves their methodology.

Because one day the measurement may be taken at the Phuping Palace at about 1,200 metres above sea level to the west of Chiang Mai city. The next measurement may be from Fang in the far north of the province.

OK, in this case it was a misunderstanding. I thought 'Chiangmai' refers to the city, not the province. Of course, if they're taking data from Phuping Palace and putting it unweighted into the calculation of the AQI, then they're distorting information.

. What I will be looking for is time series for individual locations, preferably in Excel format.

You can pick a federal state from the selection box under "Messnetzdaten". This will display the current daily average from every measuring station in the respective state and you can choose any day within the last two month. If you click on "Auswertungen" you get a page with accumulated historical data in PDF and Excel formats. Some of the site's content is also available in English.

Cheers, CMX

[orang37]

Sawasdee Khrup, TV Friends,

Once again : many thanks to esteemed Khun Priceless, Khun MapGuy, and Khun ChiangMaiExpat for making this a very interesting and valuable thread where ideas and statistics are being debated constructively, and our personal experiences "on the ground" are keeping us "grounded."

Pretty please, with nam oi gon, and nam than preep, on top : sometime : please to say something about "wind."

thanks, ~o:37;

[WholeHearted]

As a newbie, I'd be interested to know how the air is in April, May and June, since I'm probably coming to CM then to study. Should I be considering Phuket instead? Is it really all that bad in CM from November to April?

Is Chiang Rai's air any better?

[Ulysses G.]

Is it really all that bad in CM from November to April?

Is Chiang Rai's air any better?

No to both questions, but it depends on how sensitive you are.

Most people consider February, March and April to be the "smoky" months and are unconcerned for the rest of the year, but it varies from person to person. Some posters have guessed that some areas of Northern Thailand are much worse than others and that is why some people are adamant that the air is terrible and others hardly notice it.

I am in the downtown tourist area most of the time dealing with expats and tourists and only one person has mentioned anything about being bothered so far this year, but Thai Visa has posts from plenty of people who are.

Edited February 13, 2010 by Ulysses G.

[Priceless]

. What I will be looking for is time series for individual locations, preferably in Excel format.

You can pick a federal state from the selection box under "Messnetzdaten". This will display the current daily average from every measuring station in the respective state and you can choose any day within the last two month. If you click on "Auswertungen" you get a page with accumulated historical data in PDF and Excel formats. Some of the site's content is also available in English.

Cheers, CMX

I must have expressed myself less than clearly. What I am looking for is time series with raw daily data for a long enough period to do some proper analysis. The possibility to query a database for individual values for the last 5½ weeks (not two months) is obviously not of any value in this regard. (I would need at least a couple of years, preferably ~10 years as with the PCD database.) I am not much interested in aggregated data, such as yearly averages, since they are all over the internet for different locations around the world.

It seems that your German link was a bit of a red heering. Incidentally, my German is good enough to find what you mentioned above, it is just that the site does not cover my wish for proper time series.

Further, here's an example of what your earlier graph could have looked like, if you had left out the irrelevant "Chiangmai" series and plotted both "Chiang Mai" and "Uparaj College" to the same time scale (i.e. to the same x-axis). Using different x-axis for different time series can make the most strongly correlated series look uncorrelated

It is fairly obvious that the two series are well correlated, is it not? (BTW, I have no explanation for the odd-looking value for Uparaj on 6 February. Maybe a measurement or reporting error )

/ Priceless

[davidt]

I can't say I see that many people wearing masks indoors but it makes sense if working with chemicals, dust and moldy books.

It wouldn't surprise me if lots of masks people wear are ineffective or just superficial effect. If nothing else it would keep grime and sun off a persons face also when outdoors.

I have resisted but it might be time to start dressing more like darth vader when I exercise. I suppose it can't hurt health wise especially in the coming months. It could help fitness similar to training at altitude.

Any recommendations for a good exercising mask brand and source?

Good exercising mask brands : Respro & Totobobo. Note the pollution collected on the filters in Thailand and Laos.

[el jefe]

As a newbie, I'd be interested to know how the air is in April, May and June, since I'm probably coming to CM then to study. Should I be considering Phuket instead? Is it really all that bad in CM from November to April?

Is Chiang Rai's air any better?

Even UG admitted that there are long term health effects due to Chiang Mai's pollution problem. I'd stay away until after the rains.

Chiang Rai is no better, but Phuket probably is.

[Ulysses G.]

Actually, I would say that there are possibly long term effects from the March-April time of year, I'm honestly just not sure.

Edited February 14, 2010 by Ulysses G.

[CobraSnakeNecktie]

I can't say I see that many people wearing masks indoors but it makes sense if working with chemicals, dust and moldy books.

It wouldn't surprise me if lots of masks people wear are ineffective or just superficial effect. If nothing else it would keep grime and sun off a persons face also when outdoors.

I have resisted but it might be time to start dressing more like darth vader when I exercise. I suppose it can't hurt health wise especially in the coming months. It could help fitness similar to training at altitude.

Any recommendations for a good exercising mask brand and source?

Good exercising mask brands : Respro & Totobobo. Note the pollution collected on the filters in Thailand and Laos.

those look like good options. Does anybody have a recommendation on where in CM to buy a good quality masks?