Thanks China!
It has been known for years that the prevailing winds in the Northern Hemisphere go from the West to the East (the
Coriolis effect causes this). It has also been known that China's rampant air pollution problem (
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6)is carried to our shores and contributes to our own problems.
A team at UC Davis (more on UC Davis in the next post) has found out that the levels reaching our shores are higher than previously thought.
ScienceBlog has the story:
U.S. Gets More Asian Air Pollution Than Thought
Air pollution blows across the Pacific Ocean from Asia to North America far more regularly than was previously thought, says a new UC Davis study. The findings are likely to affect attempts to clear hazy skies over much of the U.S. and to understand how growing Asian air pollution will influence global climate change.
"Occasional, large-scale Asian dust storms had led us to believe that this pollution traveled east in infrequent, discrete events," said UC Davis atmospheric scientist Steve Cliff. "As it turns out, Asian pollution, particularly in the Sierra-Cascade range and elsewhere in the American West, is the rule, not the exception."
That may make it hard to meet air-quality goals set by the federal Clean Air Act, Cliff said. "Assuming Asia continues to develop as predicted, with commensurate energy needs from combustion, we will continue to increase our 'background' haze in the U.S," he said.
It also may change the prevailing notions of long-range aerosol transport, which are used by scientists trying to predict climate change using computer models, he said.
Most of China's energy comes from high-sulfur Coal.
Someone I knew was in Beijing about fifteen years ago during winter and the air was enough to make their eyes water. It's worse, a lot lot worse.
Instead of blowing all this money on Kyoto and making a very tiny clean "island" on this planet, why not take a fraction of that $$$ and spend it in nations like China and India where some very simple, cheap and effective techniques would reduce the atmospheric pollution by a factor of over 100 and would be a lot more effective than some top-down nanny-state fiat from the halls of Brussels...
Oh, I forgot, the EUnuchs don't "do" effective...
Posted by DaveH at July 28, 2005 10:22 PM