26 February 2011
Yes, People are Breathing This-Smog over China
Posted by Dan Satterfield
Beijing is in the upper right. Click to see the LARGE full res. pic.
It’s called the ABC. The Asian Brown Cloud.
The air pollution from cooking fires, coal fired power plants, and gasoline/diesel engines are the cause. This air pollution is measurable across the Pacific and into the West Coast of the U.S. Air pollution (from different areas of the world) has its own unique signature. A recent study indicated that about 30% of San Francisco’s particulate levels are from China.
Dan Satterfield has worked as an on air meteorologist for 32 years in Oklahoma, Florida and Alabama. Forecasting weather is Dan's job, but all of Earth Science is his passion. This journal is where Dan writes about things he has too little time for on air. Dan blogs about peer-reviewed Earth science for Junior High level audiences and up.
And people don’t even have to go to Asia to see it – next time folks are up in a commerical airliner, all they have to do is look out the window. (Or a sunset, sunsets work too)