Smoke, Smog, Dust 2012 Chiang Mai

[Priceless]

Is there any alternative to aqmthai.com for the latest information.

http://aqnis.pcd.go.th/report/northernhaze/2012-APR has daily reports on the 24-hour average from 9 AM - 9 AM. Usually available slightly before noon.

/ Priceless

[villagefarang]

All they can do realistically is posture, pose and procrastinate until the rain finally comes in some quantity. What do we expect them to do? Should they bomb our neighbors or arrest a few million farmers? Here is my take on the burning of paradise.

My take would be that your view is rather cynical, perhaps unknowingly.

To the contrary, I consider myself quite optimistic...given a couple generations to sort things out. Thanks for taking the time to read and respond.

[sbk]

You people should think again. If you go to the reports on Northern Haze ( http://aqnis.pcd.go....rnhaze/2012-APR ) you will find the following concerning yesterday's data for 'City Hall' (according to Google Transtale): 'No data due to equipment failure.'

The figure for Uparaj College is 65.2 µg/m3, so I don't think you should worry too much about health effects right now.

The 'Public Report' site ( http://aqmthai.com/public_report.php ) has been down on and off for the last two months due to ongoing work on the software. I'll admit that working on the live site, instead of working off-line and then uploading, says a lot about the qualifications of PCD IT staff, but suspecting sinister intentions probably says more about you than about PCD.

/ Priceless

"You people"!

http://www.urbandict...rm=you%20people

Not everyone is a native English speaker and to hijack a topic to attack someone's English is extremely poor netiquette. Please stay on topic and drop the personal stuff, thanks

[LordDude]

4 days into April already and no signs of the current situation improving. My plan was to visit toward CM towards the end of the month but right now I guess it's akin to a lottery whether things are good or bad at that time. Hope you guys living there are managing to get through it without too much discomfort; however, having spent 7 dry seasons there including the horrendous 2007, I know full well that it can be thoroughly miserable if it affects you badly.

[ogb]

The deniers are getting thin on the ground.

Optimistically, I will take that as a good sign in that finally we have agreement that there IS a problem.

Edited April 4, 2012 by ogb

[WinnieTheKhwai]

Hazy Season Ends Today, from today onwards we're in the Hot Season!

(Had very widespread wind and reain all over the North last night, showing the change.)

Priceless: Let's draw up the stats for this season, as we won't get another 120+ day this year.

How does this year compare against 2007? Subjectively I feel that 2007 had some days that were worse, but also that this year had more days above 120. But I'll let Excel do the talking.

[T_Dog]

According to the AQI figure in my sons school this morning, the AQI is 60. I guess they got it before they decided to password protect the figures

for some reason. Driving there you cannot see Doi Suthep at all, and you can see smoke lying across all the fields on the way. If that is the real figure, then something is very wrong.

One measuring station in CM out of service, followed by website changes, followed by readings that to my eye and nose are way too low (having kept a close eye on visibility and figures for

a consideable time). Also, all these changes take place just after the time the governor of CM is told to do something, and his immediate response is to spray water around from fire engines as a publicity stunt,

and little else from what I can see. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but something stinks, and it is not just the air.

The relative humidity was 83% at 7:00 AM. The bad visibility (only 2,500 metres at the airport) is in all probability due to a meteorological phenomenon called FOG.

The AQI figure is probably from yesterday, it seems to fit in with the observations from City Hall (77.3) or Uparaj (64.3).

The password protection of the aqmthai.com website is obviously idiotic. It seems that they do all their work on the live site, instead of working off-line and then uploading. Competent they are not!

/ Priceless

Not to be pedantic, but I doubt fog is occurring if the humidity is only 83%. Haze can come from high humidity (like Iowa in the summer) as easily as it can come from dust particles. Fog normally starts to occur in low lying areas where the temperature is lower and where humidity sources occur. (Fog requires local relative humidity to be at or near 100%) Poor visibility in all quadrants up to a few thousand feet above ground level is most likely haze, not fog.

In case you want to know more there are some links to follow here......

http://weatherbreak2.creighton.edu/?p=507

[jaideeguy]

I think another major contributer to the 'haze' here in the CM valley that is often overlooked is all the construction currently going on all over town with all the earth moving equipment and trucks hauling landfill, leaving chunks of soil on the roads that vehicles stir up into the air........wonder what % it is??

[orang37]

Sawasdee Khrup, TV CM Friends,

Just about 6am, I went outside, and I could see, for the first time in days, the outline of the flanks of Doi Suthep. I am at least a mile east of the Ping. Overcast skies, with clouds appearing at what appear to be at higher altitude than seen in the last few weeks.

... errr ... uhh ... does that view ... mean ... anything ?

thanks, ~o:37;

[Priceless]

Hazy Season Ends Today, from today onwards we're in the Hot Season!

(Had very widespread wind and reain all over the North last night, showing the change.)

Priceless: Let's draw up the stats for this season, as we won't get another 120+ day this year.

How does this year compare against 2007? Subjectively I feel that 2007 had some days that were worse, but also that this year had more days above 120. But I'll let Excel do the talking.

Thank you for an interesting question (and also that it is a question, not some deluded claim like some other posters prefer).

There are numerous ways to define 'worse'. I tend to mostly use the following five:

[1] The monthly average (arithmetic mean) in µg/m³ (can be stronglly influenced by a few extreme values).

[2] The monthlly median, i.e. the value at which half the daily values are higher and half are lower (not influenced by extremes).

[3] The highest 24-hour average.

[4] The total number of 'bad days', i.e. with a concentration in excess of 120 µg/m³.

[5] The number of consequtive 'bad days'.

Here are tables with these five values for March of the years 2004-2012:

As you can see, this year was nowhere near the worst over this period. At City Hall the average was 10% higher than the 2004-1012 average whereas at Uparaj it was actually 7% lower. I think that the problem is the imperfection of the human memory. More recent events tend to dominate over older ones so that this year is more polluted/less polluted, warmer/colder, rainier/less rainy etc than previous years.

/ Priceless

PS I wish I could share your conviction that we will not have another 120+ day. I'll admit that 'bad days' are very rare in April, a total of 15 this century, but of those nine (9) occurred during April of 2010!

[chiangmaiexpat]

Priceless, do you have the numbers for Chiang Rai, Mae Hong Son, Lampang and Lamphun? It seems these cities have been more affected this year than Chiang Mai.

Cheers, CMExpat

[Priceless]

Priceless, do you have the numbers for Chiang Rai, Mae Hong Son, Lampang and Lamphun? It seems these cities have been more affected this year than Chiang Mai.

Cheers, CMExpat

I do have the numbers in my database, but unfortunately no ready-made tables like those for 'Chiang Mai' and 'Uparaj'. However, the following graphs may serve to answer your question, even though they only show monthly averages. The first graph covers this year and confirms your impression. The second graph shows the period 2009-2012 (i.e. since the Pollution Control Department started posting values for more locations than 'Chiang Mai', 'Uparaj' and 'Lampang') and demonstrates that this is actually the normal situation, i.e. that Chiang Mai has had the lowest pollution levels in the Upper North during this period.

/ Priceless

[WinnieTheKhwai]

Hazy Season Ends Today, from today onwards we're in the Hot Season!

(Had very widespread wind and reain all over the North last night, showing the change.)

Priceless: Let's draw up the stats for this season, as we won't get another 120+ day this year.

How does this year compare against 2007? Subjectively I feel that 2007 had some days that were worse, but also that this year had more days above 120. But I'll let Excel do the talking.

Thank you for an interesting question (and also that it is a question, not some deluded claim like some other posters prefer).

There are numerous ways to define 'worse'. I tend to mostly use the following five:

[1] The monthly average (arithmetic mean) in µg/m³ (can be stronglly influenced by a few extreme values).

[2] The monthlly median, i.e. the value at which half the daily values are higher and half are lower (not influenced by extremes).

[3] The highest 24-hour average.

[4] The total number of 'bad days', i.e. with a concentration in excess of 120 µg/m³.

[5] The number of consequtive 'bad days'.

Here are tables with these five values for March of the years 2004-2012:

As you can see, this year was nowhere near the worst over this period. At City Hall the average was 10% higher than the 2004-1012 average whereas at Uparaj it was actually 7% lower. I think that the problem is the imperfection of the human memory. More recent events tend to dominate over older ones so that this year is more polluted/less polluted, warmer/colder, rainier/less rainy etc than previous years.

/ Priceless

PS I wish I could share your conviction that we will not have another 120+ day. I'll admit that 'bad days' are very rare in April, a total of 15 this century, but of those nine (9) occurred during April of 2010!

Wow, thank you very much, that's an excellent summary! I guess that also means that this year didn't seriously affect the overall downward trend (especially not as last year the haze went AWOL completely.

Edited April 5, 2012 by WinnieTheKhwai

[Priceless]

Wow, thank you very much, that's an excellent summary! I guess that also means that this year didn't seriously affect the overall downward trend (especially not as last year the haze went AWOL completely.

You are right, so far the downward trend has not been affected. The trend in this graph is estimated using data up to 31 March of this year. As you can see, each "peak year" (2004, 2007, 2010 and 2012) has a lower peak than the previous one. Let's just hope that this continues

/ Priceless

[mesquite]

Finally, global warming is disproved!

[Priceless]

My sincere apologies to readers of my previous "comparison post" (#790 above). I have just discovered an error in the 'Uparaj' table, which should have looked like this:

The observant reader will notice the changed number of consequtive 'bad days' for 2004, up from 14 to 30!

/ Priceless

[nikster]

Hazy Season Ends Today, from today onwards we're in the Hot Season!

(Had very widespread wind and reain all over the North last night, showing the change.)

Priceless: Let's draw up the stats for this season, as we won't get another 120+ day this year.

How does this year compare against 2007? Subjectively I feel that 2007 had some days that were worse, but also that this year had more days above 120. But I'll let Excel do the talking.

Thank you for an interesting question (and also that it is a question, not some deluded claim like some other posters prefer).

There are numerous ways to define 'worse'. I tend to mostly use the following five:

[1] The monthly average (arithmetic mean) in µg/m³ (can be stronglly influenced by a few extreme values).

[2] The monthlly median, i.e. the value at which half the daily values are higher and half are lower (not influenced by extremes).

[3] The highest 24-hour average.

[4] The total number of 'bad days', i.e. with a concentration in excess of 120 µg/m³.

[5] The number of consequtive 'bad days'.

Here are tables with these five values for March of the years 2004-2012:

...

Yeah, well, we'd need tables with data for February, March, and April. The pollution doesn't just stop outside of March, and this year was surprisingly bad already in February - so bad that we took off, actually.

The other reason I thought this year was the worst is that things simply didn't improve until we were south of Bangkok - visibility-wise. In years past, the cutoff point for bad air had been Tak, 3 hours south of CM. This year... bad air all the way through to BKK. This was in February.

And then, as has been posted earlier, the health effects are more complicated than that too, with peaks being more harmful / averages less important than peak values.

By the way the official air quality website shows a max value of 318 for Chiang Mai - not seeing this in your charts either.

Edited April 5, 2012 by nikster

[WinnieTheKhwai]

^ A single point-in-time max reading wouldn't make it into the daily average. You could argue that it should, but prior to February 2012 the only data available are daily averages. Starting next year we can begin to compare the peaks in single readings. (Although you could also wonder how useful that is; you do get odd-ball readings either high or low due to localized events. (A nasty truck riding past at the time of the reading, someone making a fire right next door, etc.)

I think it makes the most sense to compare the daily averages. We're analyzing trends in a continuing problem after all, not trying to make the Guinness Book of Records.

[Priceless]

Yeah, well, we'd need tables with data for February, March, and April. The pollution doesn't just stop outside of March, and this year was surprisingly bad already in February - so bad that we took off, actually.

The other reason I thought this year was the worst is that things simply didn't improve until we were south of Bangkok - visibility-wise. In years past, the cutoff point for bad air had been Tak, 3 hours south of CM. This year... bad air all the way through to BKK. This was in February.

And then, as has been posted earlier, the health effects are more complicated than that too, with peaks being more harmful / averages less important than peak values.

By the way the official air quality website shows a max value of 318 for Chiang Mai - not seeing this in your charts either.

I didn't include April for the simple reason that the 2012 version of it hadn't occurred when I put the tables together (and still hasn't, I think your almanac is running fast).

I'll give you some figures for February, though:

'Chiang Mai' (City Hall)

Monthly average: 78.2 µg/m³ (2% below the 2004-2012 average 79.4)

Maximum 24-hour average: 179.4 µg/m³

Number of 'bad days' (i.e. >120 µg/m³): 1 (with 5 missing observations of which 3 may have been >120)

Consequtive 'bad days': 1

'Uparaj College'

Monthly average: 76.9 µg/m³ (16% below the 2004-2012 average 91.6)

Maximum 24-hour average: 174.0 µg/m³

Number of 'bad days' (i.e. >120 µg/m³): 4 (with no missing observations)

Consequtive 'bad days': 3

Your statement 'this year was surprisingly bad already in February' seems to be based on some location other than Chiang Mai, or else concern only the 25^th to 27^th of that month.

I stick to 24-hour averages for the simple reason that all the standards that I have seen, from different countries/organisations, are shown that way. Incidentally, it would be very interesting if you would give a (credible) source for your statement 'peaks being more harmful / averages less important than peak values'. In its 'Air Quality Guidelines - Update 2005' the World Health Organization says 'Based on known health effects, both short-term (24-hour) and long-term (annual) guidelines are needed' (p 277).

/ Priceless

[chiang mai]

Suggesting that the readings for February were 2% and 16% below the 2004 - 2012 averages is surely not meaningful and must distort the picture since the peaks and valleys for the subject period are so extreme - there were extreme peaks and radical lows during that nine year period.

[Priceless]

Suggesting that the readings for February were 2% and 16% below the 2004 - 2012 averages is surely not meaningful and must distort the picture since the peaks and valleys for the subject period are so extreme - there were extreme peaks and radical lows during that nine year period.

I consider it quite 'meaningful' if the purpose is to demonstrate that February of this year was quite average. In fact, the value for 'Chiang Mai' was the fourth highest and the one for 'Uparaj' was the fifth highest of the nine-year period.

Since 'nikster' suggested that 'this year was surprisingly bad already in February', I find it quite reasonable to show (not 'suggest') that he is wrong.

/ Priceless

[smiling mantis]

Since 'nikster' suggested that 'this year was surprisingly bad already in February', I find it quite reasonable to show (not 'suggest') that he is wrong.

As a newcomer to Chiang Mai let me say that this statement is absolutely correct. The air here is surprisingly bad. There were a few days in March where I was in genuine fear for my health.

Your efforts at spinning these conditions as normal, and calling posters here "deluded" for pointing out obvious efforts to hide the truth, are in my view what is really wrong here.

[Tywais]

Do we have another culprit responsible?

Who is burning paradise?

The northern haze and fires isn’t mostly farmers – it’s business people burning down forests to grow corn and the like for the ethanol industry.

The haze problem in the North is being worsened by the burning of forest areas to grow crops such as corn for ethanol production, researchers and local officials have said.

Officials believe mono-cropping has been encouraged by the government’s ethanol use policy which has resulted in higher price for crops such as corn. Ash from the burning also reduces nutrients in the soil.

Mr Nakorn, a farmer at Mae Chaem, said the villagers started growing corn intensively because major agribusinesses approached them several years ago offering good prices.

More here Robinlea scroll down to near middle page. Understand it is editorializing.

[chiangmaiexpat]

As a newcomer to Chiang Mai let me say that this statement is absolutely correct. The air here is surprisingly bad. There were a few days in March where I was in genuine fear for my health.

I concur, and I am not a newcomer. This was a bad year and the air was nothing short of crappy in February. The PCD numbers actually support that. If you take the EU limits as a measure of "good and bad", and not the forgiving Thai limits, then the entire season is in fact bad, every single day of it. The new EU (2010) standard allows only seven PM 10 exceedences > 50 µg/m³ per year vs. 35 exceedences before that. Guess what, the monthly averages in the hazy season exceed that value. The EU limits are totally out of reach if even the relaxed Thai safety standards cannot be met!

Of course, this is hardly news for people living here and it has long been recognised as a serious problem. People getting increasingly fed up with the lack of action. In my view, the downward trend is a statistical fabrication that rests on the haphazard selection of data points. There are currently no effective problem solving measures under way, and hence, there is no downward trend.

I am also anthipathetic to the image of innocent farmers exercising traditional farming methods. Sorry, this is the 21st century. These people are engaging in destructive practices that destroy lifes, either directly through killing animals in forests and fields, or indirectly by making thousands of people sick. These actions have serious karmic consequences and need to be addressed with education and regulation on the part of the government. If anything has changed this year, it's probably the emergence of a consensus that the "it's not so bad" faction hasn't got their facts right.

Cheers, CMExpat

[Priceless]

As a newcomer to Chiang Mai let me say that this statement is absolutely correct. The air here is surprisingly bad. There were a few days in March where I was in genuine fear for my health.

I concur, and I am not a newcomer. This was a bad year and the air was nothing short of crappy in February. The PCD numbers actually support that. If you take the EU limits as a measure of "good and bad", and not the forgiving Thai limits, then the entire season is in fact bad, every single day of it. The new EU (2010) standard allows only seven PM 10 exceedences > 50 µg/m³ per year vs. 35 exceedences before that. Guess what, the monthly averages in the hazy season exceed that value. The EU limits are totally out of reach if even the relaxed Thai safety standards cannot be met!

Of course, this is hardly news for people living here and it has long been recognised as a serious problem. People getting increasingly fed up with the lack of action. In my view, the downward trend is a statistical fabrication that rests on the haphazard selection of data points. There are currently no effective problem solving measures under way, and hence, there is no downward trend.

I am also anthipathetic to the image of innocent farmers exercising traditional farming methods. Sorry, this is the 21st century. These people are engaging in destructive practices that destroy lifes, either directly through killing animals in forests and fields, or indirectly by making thousands of people sick. These actions have serious karmic consequences and need to be addressed with education and regulation on the part of the government. If anything has changed this year, it's probably the emergence of a consensus that the "it's not so bad" faction hasn't got their facts right.

Cheers, CMExpat

Do you have a source for this? My source is http://ec.europa.eu/environment/air/quality/standards.htm which states 35 exceedences per year (not that all of EU lives up to that).

/ Priceless

[chiangmaiexpat]

Do you have a source for this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particulates

[Priceless]

Do you have a source for this?

http://en.wikipedia....ki/Particulates

I'm afraid that Wikipedia has failed to inform the EU that the standard has been changed:

(Source: http://eur-lex.europ...001:0044:EN:PDF )

/ Priceless

[chiangmaiexpat]

I'm afraid that Wikipedia has failed to inform the EU that the standard has been changed

Either Wikipedia knows something we don't know and the EU publications are not up-to-date, or they are simply wrong. Given Wikipedia's past performance I tend to believe the latter, but I suppose we cannot clarify this easily. Even with the 35 days exceedence standard, most of northern Thailand looks 'exceedingly' bad air-pollution-wise.

While I appreciate the statistics, I have to say that the PM10 data from a few measuring stations hardly captures the whole picture. Not only might other pollutants also play a role, but to understand the full socio-economic impact, one would have to look at the number of hospitalisations, the number of respiratory and cardiac medical cases, the number of sick notes and absences during the burning season, the number of people reporting discomfort, properties and habitats destroyed by fires, ecological consequences, as well as travel and migration patterns, tourist arrivals, etc.

Cheers, CMExpat

[Priceless]

I'm afraid that Wikipedia has failed to inform the EU that the standard has been changed

Either Wikipedia knows something we don't know and the EU publications are not up-to-date, or they are simply wrong. Given Wikipedia's past performance I tend to believe the latter, but I suppose we cannot clarify this easily. Even with the 35 days exceedence standard, most of northern Thailand looks 'exceedingly' bad air-pollution-wise.

While I appreciate the statistics, I have to say that the PM10 data from a few measuring stations hardly captures the whole picture. Not only might other pollutants also play a role, but to understand the full socio-economic impact, one would have to look at the number of hospitalisations, the number of respiratory and cardiac medical cases, the number of sick notes and absences during the burning season, the number of people reporting discomfort, properties and habitats destroyed by fires, ecological consequences, as well as travel and migration patterns, tourist arrivals, etc.

Cheers, CMExpat

The answer to your first query is quite simple: Wikipedia refers to directives 1999/30/EC and 96/62/EC. These are completely outdated. The current directive is 2008/50/EC that I quoted from and gave a link to. Incidentally, the EU does not live up to its own standard. According to their latest report ('Air quality in Europe — 2011 report', http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/air-quality-in-europe-2011 p27) 20-25% of the population resident in EU urban areas is exposed to PM10 levels in excess of the 35-day standard.

As for 'While I appreciate the statistics, I have to say that the PM10 data from a few measuring stations hardly captures the whole picture.', this is quite obvious and I don't think anyone has ever claimed that it does. As for 'other pollutants' none other than PM10 has, as far as I know, ever exceeded their respective threshold levels here in Chiang Mai.

If 'to understand the full socio-economic impact, one would have to look at the number of hospitalisations, the number of respiratory and cardiac medical cases, the number of sick notes and absences during the burning season, the number of people reporting discomfort, properties and habitats destroyed by fires, ecological consequences, as well as travel and migration patterns, tourist arrivals, etc' is a requirement, I think that you can rest reassured that you can continue complaining for at least another generation or two. You may not have noticed, but we live in a third-world country where a complete picture like the one you want has (I believe) never been put together anywhere in the world. In fact, if I have understood the WHO report 'Air Quality Guidelines Global Update 2005' correctly, the causal relationships that you are asking for are largely beyond the current state of science.

I, for one, am quite amazed at the level of ambition of the PCD in posting all the data that it does. This gives us an opportunity to at least follow the ambient air quality with a surprising breadth and depth of detail.

/ Priceless

[nikster]

In general I question the method of cutting it up into months... does the smog look at the calendar? The March 2012 average was "saved" by rain in the middle which cleared the air for a week.

Anyway the best and most meaningful statistic I can think of is the number of cases of respiratory disease registered in hospitals. I don't know whether that statistic is publicly available but that would actually provide an answer to the question: Does the pollution get worse, or better?

My feeling is neither - people are not burning more or less than they have been, and burning is the primary source of pollution. Whether a year is "better" than others depends on weather patterns, which we all know are not predictable.

Edit - and yeah the Thai standard of 120 I think is ridiculous. Feeling-wise, pollution gets bad around 50. It gets really bad at 80, and progressively worse past that. 120 to me is already deep into the "get the hell out of here" territory. If you want to define consecutive bad days, use 80 as the limit.

I imagine they put the standard so high because they were well aware of the annual burning season. Nothing else in Thailand comes even close.

Edited April 6, 2012 by nikster