Global Air Pollution to Neighborhood Level

[rellott]

http://www.citylab.com/weather/2015/...-level/400337/

http://epi.yale.edu/visuals/airmap/

Capture by Rell Ott, on Flickr

Discuss your observations. I know I'm surprised.

[chris08876]

Looking at the second link...

I'd imagine the spillover rate from China is really messing Japan up. I thought Japan had better industry standards than the U.S. when it came to air pollution but it might just be that the larger land size reduces the average ppm for the U.S., and its really much higher than Japan.

NJ no surprise there. A drive on the parkway or turnpike should be plenty of evidence.

Also, why is the ppm so high for the Congo? Burning of forests?

For the U.S., agriculture produces a crap (methane) load of it.

[AviationGuy]

I believe the swath of high PM2.5 in northern Mexico may be related to some very dirty power plants. Could also be related to being downwind of highly industrialized Monterrey.

[10023]

I'm sure this changes on a daily basis based on the jet stream, wind direction, temperature, thermal inversions, etc.

[sentinel]

Good God, don't even bother zooming into parts of eastern and north-eastern China; the entire area seems to be on the far right end of the scale. I've read extensively how lung cancer rates have skyrocketed in the past 15-20 years, especially in Beijing...but how are people even supposed to live day-to-day under such conditions? Horrid.