Olympic Summer Air Likely to be as Bad as 2007
When I wrote my piece arguing that Beijing should lose the Olympics a couple of weeks back, Chris from Bezdomny Ex Patria countered that I was selectively pulling data and examples in an unscientific way:
Your photo is not typical. “Weather” like that happens often, but it is due as much to natural phenomena (still, humid air) as artificial. Doesn’t change the fact that the sun is not often enough that photographable to make that photo typical. Too often for comfort, but still, not typical…
I’ve spent more than a few summers in Beijing, and last summer was exceptionally bad.
Well, I’m going to try to dispute both of these points as part of my quest to bring the unknown topic of Beijing pollution to light. Seriously, I’m going to lay out how this summer was slightly worse than normal, but generally quite typical, particularly August.
The first thing I did was go through SEPA’s (Chinese environmental agency that monitors air quality) online database for the last 7 years. I tracked every July since 2001 (I should done August since that’s when the Olympics will be, but it’s 227 data points, so I really don’t want to hear about it). Anyway, here are the average readings for air particle levels for each of the last 7 Julys starting in ‘o1 on a scale of 1-500:
84, 85, 96, 79, 86, 69, 95.
This puts the average July right at about 85. 2007 was on the high end of the range, but the only really anomalous entry was 2006. In fact, if you remove that as an outlier, the number goes up to 87.
When you look at the numbers from August 8th to the 22nd of this year (the approximate Olympic days) they look pretty similar, with an average of just over 85. This is includes the 4 days when Beijing pushed hundreds of thousands of cars off the road, although those 4 days made up 4 of the top 6 worst pollution days of the month (oops!). For some bizarre reason August 20th data is not available, so I’ve excluded it, but here’s a picture to prove it (click for larger, clearer image).
The point is that August, and to a lesser extent, July, were very typical for Beijing. In fact, those types of levels are exactly what we should expect. Based on the absurdly short trial run the government carried out with regard to reduced road traffic, the measures look entirely ineffective, so don’t plan on any relief from fewer cars. And has frequently been pointed out, China has decided not to close its factories.
Loading …I’ll leave you with a number of pictures that I took throughout the summer to prove that the last image was not an anomaly. In the spirit of fairness, I’ll even include some of the cleaner ones (all clickable).
As you can see even the clearer days are pretty grim, and I have dozens more pictures that I didn’t want to put online because they are almost all closer to the bad images than the good ones.
At least the IOC will never be able to say they weren’t warned…because EVERYONE has warned them:
July 6-July 8; August 16-18
London 2012 Olympics news, reviews and updates blog » Blog Archive » Olympic Summer Air Likely to be as Bad as 2007 responds:
Posted: November 17th, 2007 at 11:53 am →
[...] sbhelp’s journal wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptWhen I wrote my piece arguing that Beijing should lose the Olympics a couple of weeks back, Chris from Bezdomny Ex Patria countered that I was selectively pulling d… [...]
Jeremy responds:
Posted: November 17th, 2007 at 1:07 pm →
Hey Josh,
Nice reply there… trying to claim that almost any big city in China is not polluted is just crazy. But you know what, let the athletes deal with a few days or weeks of pollution. It should slow them all down about the same on average, plus it’s not going to cause any long term harm (you know, like living in one of the cities for years and years)
At least that’s the attitude the Chinese gov’t has about all of this.
You’re right in that they are breaking many of the original promises being made, though =)
All Roads responds:
Posted: November 17th, 2007 at 2:22 pm →
Josh - good stuff
However, I am of the mind that the air actually will be clean in August… really.
My evidence?
While living in Beijing from 2001 - 2002 I was witness to two events that give me hope.
1) During the middle of August 2001 there was a period of 2-3 weeks where crystal blue skies existed. It was odd… REALLY odd. By the third day, we knew something was going on.. by the second week, we knew we were going to pay for it! Turns out the IOC was in town the second week, and for the two weeks prior they had shut down factories and construction sites all over.
2) That same summer was the year that China was in the World cup.. and during every match that China played. China STOPPED. Now, I do not want to go to far out on this limb, but carry that out to the Olympics when there will be national teams playing for national honor for nearly every moment of 2 weeks in August.
That is my argument in a nutshell, and I am hopeful that I am right… but if I were a marathoner, I would pack an O2 tank just in case.
chriswaugh_bj responds:
Posted: November 17th, 2007 at 7:00 pm →
Jeremy: Nobody was “trying to claim that almost any big city in China is not polluted”.
Josh: I guess the data proves me wrong. Trouble is, like All Roads, I have seen spectacularly clean and clear summer days in Beijing. Take this series of photos as an example of the kind of weather Beijing can throw up in mid-summer:
http://voicethread.com/share/18877/
I took those photos in August ‘06, and I assure you, they are 100% for real. The only fiddling I did was adjusting the light so you could actually see what I saw that day (my camera somehow likes to make things darker for some odd reason). Yes, I really could see the Jundushan to the north of the city from Jingshan. Those photos, though, are certainly not “typical” (and more’s the pity), but such days do happen.
I stand by my statement that last summer was unusual. Never before have I seen still, humid air settle over Beijing for two months straight. Every previous summer I have seen in Beijing has had a much greater variety of weather, from the spectacular clear, blue skies in my photos, to huge thunder storms, to still, humid, foggy, smoggy air like all of last summer. The data you provide suggests that air quality last summer was worse than normal, but not spectacularly so. I guess we should all remember that good air quality does not necessarily mean clear skies, just like bad air quality does not necessarily mean palpable smog. Different types of weather and pollution affect visibility and clarity differently.
Lastly, I’m inclined to agree with All Roads’ prediction for August ‘08.
Larry responds:
Posted: November 18th, 2007 at 1:15 am →
What ever they say right now, the Chinese government can decide in July next year to close down all the factories withing a thousand miles of Beijing, and forbid any car, except buses, from moving around withing 500 miles of Beijing, starting two weeks before the Games. That should do it, and there is plenty of time to move all the troops from Manchuria into Beijing to enforce such ban on vehicles.
Chinese government is very efficient. It takes them very little time to make a decision and make it stick if they want to. No forewarning is ever needed, and Chinese people will find ways to cope.
I just wonder what would those factory workers do with the weeks of unexpected holidays. Will they get paid ? Will there be enough transportation to take them and their families to other parts of China for an impromptu vacation ?
All Roads responds:
Posted: November 18th, 2007 at 5:50 pm →
Larry -
They just released news that May Day & October Holiday may be a thing of the past in 2008. Perhaps that is to offset the 2 week Olympic holiday?
Scott Pilkington responds:
Posted: November 28th, 2007 at 8:08 pm →
with a long time involvement with Olympic sports starting before Barcelona and being on OLympic teams in Atlanta and Sydney, I can say that every Olympic City has been fraught with rumors of lack of preparation right up till the day the Games started. Dire rumors of athelete housing being shoddily built and collapsing on atheletes did not happen in Atlanta or Greece. Lying organizers? I remember being in the 100+ degree heat while IOC officials furiously saying they were decieved by Atlantas alleged temperate summers with an average of 72 degrees that was obtained by an April to September stretch including evening lows. The 84 Games in LA were likewises plagued with huge concerns abut smog.
My limited , random visits in Guangzhou , Shanghai, and Beijing leave an impression of less smog than my equally random limited visits to the Los Angeles area….. well maybe not Guangzhou.