Longer-term thinking ‘needed’ on air pollution

The last major episode to grab the headlines came a year ago when many areas of Britain were blanketed in a noxious brew that turned the skies grey-brown for several days.

At the time, all eyes were focused on the most exotic -sounding ingredient – dust that had been blown up from the Sahara.

Tiny grains from the desert had indeed made the long airborne trek from the desert but most of the problem was caused by a nasty mix of pollutants created here and abroad.

Britain frequently finds itself on the receiving-end of pollution wafted in from the Continent – and more of that is forecast tomorrow with a current of air circling from central Europe across southern France and over the English Channel.

A computer model from the American weather agency NOAA calculates where the air that will be over London tomorrow has come from.

A so-called “back-trajectory” plots the position of a single parcel of air every six hours so you can see its path over the past four days.

The chart also shows that the pollution cloud will generally remain below 500m in altitude which means it is concentrated in a relatively small air space and therefore packs more of a punch.

As often happens, this shows that much of the contamination comes from the industrial sites and major cities of northwest Europe.

Details:  http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32236678

Posted by admin on Apr 11 2015. Filed under News at Now. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry