Recently, I met Dr. Karin Ardon-Dryer and she is my new favorite scientist/superstar because of her research and her charismatic way to share important information to the public. She was able to captivate everyone in the room with her presentation Effect of Dust Particles on Human Health at Miami University.
Sand storms, often romanticized in movies and documentaries, pose a far more significant threat than just a dramatic backdrop. These swirling giants of dust wreak havoc on air quality, carrying not just coarse sand but also microscopic fine particles with serious implications for human health. While sand storms are often associated with arid regions far from home, their reach extends farther than you might think, impacting even areas within the United States. Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and even eastern California are some of the states that experience poor air quality from such meteorological phenomena.
Haboob vs Sandstorm vs Dust Storms
Haboob (Arabic for blasting/drifting) is a strong wind carrying a mass of dust and sand that has been lifted from the ground in very dry areas such as deserts.
Sandstorm is a windstorm especially in a desert, that blows along great clouds of sand.
Dust storms carry much smaller particles, which can be carried higher and further than sandstorms.
Indoor air quality (IAQ) is a crucial aspect of human health and well-being. However, achieving adequate ventilation in homes and other indoor spaces can be challenging, particularly when outdoor air pollution levels are elevated due to smoke from wood-burning stoves. This article explores why poor ventilation in polluted environments poses a heightened risk of pathogen spread.
Factors Hindering Ventilation in Polluted Environments
Wood-burning stoves, used for heating and cooking, release particulate matter (PM), nitrogen oxides (NOx), and carbon monoxide (CO) into the atmosphere. These pollutants can accumulate in extended areas, especially under certain weather conditions. Normally, warm air rising from the ground carries pollution upwards, dispersing it into the atmosphere. However, during the winter, a warm layer of air can settle over a city like a lid, trapping cold air and pollutants near the ground. This phenomenon, known as a thermal inversion, occurs when a warm air mass above restricts the upward movement of cold, denser air, trapping it along with pollutants close to the surface. Thermal inversions are particularly prevalent in cities like Los Angeles, Mumbai, Granada, and Mexico City, where cold, dense air gets confined within mountain basins or valleys.
As we face the frigid temperatures brought by polar vortexes in the US, the last thing anyone wants is to enter a freezing cold car. However, it is important to note that in many states, warming up your vehicle by letting it idle is actually illegal.
Regardless of the duration, idling is considered an automatic misdemeanor in most states. Surprisingly, even using the automatic start feature on your car can be against the law in some states. The penalties for idling vary depending on the jurisdiction. For example, in Washington D.C., you could face a $5,000 fine if your car idles for just three (3) minutes. However, some states are more lenient, like Pennsylvania, where idling is allowed for up to twenty (20) minutes when the temperature is below 40ºF (4ºC).
What’s new? Well, some clean up of discontinued monitors and some updates. In this list you will find ambient air quality monitors for experts who want to supervise and monitor air pollutants in cities and industrial sites, and commercial outdoor air quality monitors for homeowners who want to check the air quality outside their houses/apartments.
Air pollution can cause a range of health problems, including respiratory and cardiovascular diseases (CVD), and even premature death. By monitoring ambient air quality, governments and individuals can take steps to reduce exposure to harmful pollutants and protect public health.
The animated image below was created by Mark Parrington and was originally publish on his Twitter account on June 6th, 2023.
I believe it is an eye opening animation as it reveals how easy air pollution travels across states and countries. We call this pollution Cross-Border Air Pollution.
Let’s forget at the moment that combustion vehicles emit carbon dioxide (CO2), and focus on the occupants that spend time inside a confined space where they emit CO2 due to metabolite of cell respiration. Vehicles form part of the indoor spaces where humans spend a lot of time due to traffic or because they have to travel long distances.
Regulatory bodies have been controlling many aspects of modern vehicles; tires, mirrors, seat belts, airbags, screens, etc. However, they have forgotten to look into the air quality inside the vehicles and how it affects the driver’s cognitive performance.
I had the chance to visit New Delhi and Agra in India due to an annual conference that we had to assist. I was well informed about the poor air quality in the area, so I was prepared to breathe some pollution. I have read many articles and heard many testimonials about the situation there but still, a visit in situ helps someone understand the issue on a whole new level.
Some weeks ago, I published an article on “Why is Air Pollution Invisible” and I think during my visit to India I experienced all of the points clearly.
Immediately, once you come out of the aircraft, you can smell the air pollution. It is everywhere, indoors and outdoors. Even waiting in the immigration line for clearance you can smell it. I didn’t have the instrument in hand at that point in order to measure the concentrations, but from my experience and because air pollution was visible due to high levels, I estimate concentrations of 100μg/m3 of PM2.5. I want to make clear that I was still indoors.
From there, I headed to the hotel in a taxi. As you may imagine, the air quality was not better, but quite the opposite as the fumes from the relentless amount of unregulated vehicles were spewing everything they had in their engines. Particles of all sizes and gas fumes. Interestingly, more than 90% of the vehicle in the streets were occupied by only one person, the driver. On top of the air pollution in the streets, you can add noise pollution as the use of car horns is a tradition in India.
I managed to arrive at the hotel after a small accident with the car (no damages) where I took the air quality monitor out of my luggage in order to measure the conditions in the room. Unfortunately, it wasn’t safe either. The mean PM2.5 concentration during my stay was around 50μg/m3.
The hotel had some small air purifiers in the hallway, but the coverage area was too big for them to handle properly. I looked at the filters and they were pure black, who knows for how long they were running without replacement.
On day two, my nose didn’t register the smell of smoke anymore. I was one of them! Unable to smell the pollution and consequently remind myself that I need to find clean air. This is what happens to locals that don’t have options, eventually, they forget.
For simplicity, here you can see my PM2.5 exposure for the last date of my trip before coming back home. However, the particle counts for the smaller particles like 0.3μm and 0.5μm, which get lost with mass concentration values, were even higher reaching counts of around 400,000,000 particles per m3 and 40,000,000 particles per m3, respectively. By the way, according to the locals, I visited New Delhi during a good AQ time.
Enough with the AQ data, we know it is really bad, my main question was where all this air pollution comes from. Most people will tell me that it is due to vehicle emissions and domestic burning. Still, it doesn’t make sense though because the weather was warm and there was no need to burn logs for heating. Additionally, the issue was persisting all day and night. So after a conversation with a local professor, he pointed out that the main source was waste management. Basically, they burn garbage and these eternal fires create the smog that persists in the city and makes people really sick.
I talked about the car horns, but you will also hear many people cough. It’s normal as their lungs are suffering from chronic exposure to toxic air pollutants.
There is some good news, though. Once the local people realize the source of pollution as I did, they can fix it. New Delhi is populated by 15,000,000 people and I understand that the amount of waste they generate is equivalent to that number, but the management of the waste can’t be “burn it, it will disappear” because it doesn’t. Finally, vehicles need some kind of control and annual revisions that will force the drivers to maintain the car in optimal conditions like EURO 6 compliance does in Europe.
There are countless times that I stretch the importance of monitoring and managing indoor air quality by keeping an eye on the outdoor air quality/conditions.
In this experiment, I want to demonstrate that it is hard to manage indoor air. I want to state that indoor spaces should be subject to 24/7 monitoring and not a periodic inspection.
The graph below demonstrated that indoor AQ gets influenced by outdoor air and on top of that, the polluted air lingers for a longer time indoors unless there is a mitigation plan (aka filtration) in place.
I love spring as it marks the return of warm weather, outdoor activities, the blossom of flowers, and life in general. However, pollen becomes abundant everywhere there are plants and trees, as a result, the flare of allergy-related health issues too. I am allergic to some kind of pollen and although I can manage it without medication, some people are suffering to a greater extend and they need better ways to mitigate pollen out of their immediate environment.
Unfortunately, on earth, there are only a few special Air Quality monitors that can measure and classify pollen. Satellites also track the progress of pollen but do you know where to find this kind of information? I bet no, for this reason, I will tell you in a bit.
Remember, the first step is always quantifying the pollutants/allergens (pollen in this case) before mitigating them from indoor spaces. The reason is simple, once we have the proper information, we can take better decisions. For example, should I exercise outdoors today or go outside for some errands or is this the right moment to ventilate my house?
More and more people choose to ride a bike for their daily commutes and although SODAQ AIR is not the first air quality monitor for a bike, it is the first to have collected over 20M data points. This is particularly import for the development of an IoT air quality monitor as the developers have enough information to debug and develop a super stable product that needs very little troubleshooting from its users.
SODAQ is not a new company as it was founded back in 2013, and they have been working on this particular project (SODAQ AIR) alone since 2015. It seems that consumer satisfaction is always their priority, which is very important nowadays as we need sustainable products that will last for a long time.
See The Air 