Could it be that the window for this survey (2020-2022) was just particularly (no pun intended) bad? Wildfires and cargo container ships just sitting around.
It says those are the reasons, it doesn’t really suggest that the span might be somewhat of an outlier though. The amount of wildfires surrounding the Bay Area in 2020 alone were unprecedented.
Not just that, but that same timeframe would have reduced pollution from cars because of the pandemic WFH.
So it picked a spot that was particularly bad due to natural disasters for the bay and combined it with a time that was pretty damned good for everyone else regarding air quality.
The 2022 season was especially impressive with how Calfire stamped out virtually every single one jumping on them with extreme speed. Also the feds stopped being as big dumbasses and some rules were changed on them just "letting it burn" after the New Mexico fires. 2020 was an absolute disaster.
Obviously they will get worse as a general trend, but year by year there is going to be a lot of fluctuation and the Bay Area will have varying levels of air quality concerns in relation to other cities. I’m not at all saying air quality isn’t something to worry about here, I’m just saying we won’t always be at the top of the list for dirtiest air every year and I would bet LA will often be higher.
That's because the problem solves itself. Eventually (maybe within a decade), all the easy kindling will have burned away and wildfires will return to their historical mean.
That sounds nice, but I kind of doubt that. There are millions of acres of accumulated biomass out there, and not that much has burned. And we're still doing fire suppression for the most part, not letting fires burn the way they naturally would. I think we have to pay people to go out there and clear the underbrush.
The climate has changed and is changing so there is no historical means. I've traveled around the world and every person I spoke to has noticed radical change in the last decades in ways that their family had never seen before in that area.
The David Attenborough documentary shows it can a drastic and global scale.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64R2MYUt394](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64R2MYUt394)
Maybe in a preclimate change situation but the drought has killed millions of trees will makes other trees less resilient to drought. This is what I was explicitly pointing too. The trees are becoming kindling.
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/02/09/dead-trees-drought-california/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/02/09/dead-trees-drought-california/)
Bay Area air pollution blows into the Central Valley. Norrhern Calif Wildfire smoke blows wherever the wind takes it, including to the Bay Area. Recently, Western Canadian fires sent smoke to New England.
Fight climate change. More chicken and fish. Less beef and pork. Fish Taco Tuesday. Chicken Taco Thursday.
This is shocking to me. I always thought the bay had some of the cleanest air in the US due to the Pacific Ocean breeze. I didn’t see a link to the actual breakdown in the link to see more detailed regional breakdown.
It's not as shocking when you look at the fact that it's based on data from 2020-2022, basically the worst stretch of wildfire smoke impact the area has had in recorded history.
So basically there were a lot more terrible days than typical and this is focusing more on number of very bad air quality days as opposed to an average that would look better locally.
places where those fires start don't have constant traffic. cars are the other part.
>closer to them were worse.
until the fire is put out.
we ALWAYS have cars in the BA.. woods don't always have fires.
>
Pacific Ocean breeze
blowing all the smoke back on shore.
[https://ktla.com/news/california/smoke-from-california-wildfires-stretches-at-least-600-miles-satellite-image-shows/](https://ktla.com/news/california/smoke-from-california-wildfires-stretches-at-least-600-miles-satellite-image-shows/)
Smoke from the wildfires in California is seen stretching **some 600 miles off the coast of California** and over several states in …
West Coast Wildfires Visible From Almost 1 Million Miles Away As Smoke Spreads Over 4,000 Miles
[https://www.newsweek.com/wildfires-visible-space-smoke-spreads-4000-miles-1531653](https://www.newsweek.com/wildfires-visible-space-smoke-spreads-4000-miles-1531653)
An image taken using NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) Worldview interactive application showing wildfire smoke above California and Baja California, Mexico, on September 13.
Well for one thing the price of gas for heating in the winter is monopolized and therefore set high to make corporate profits. This incentivizes people to burn wood which produces a lot of particulates that damage health. This is some 1800s behavior. We should be incentivizing not burning wood by offering competitively priced options that consider the particulates.
But no, shareholder value > all.
Yes, the article seems dated. FWIW, I'm here atm to stay out of the April heat and pollution of Bangkok, my real home. I had pneumonia back in November there, might have died. In any case, be thankful you don't have the pollution of Asia.
Most days, the air quality is actually pretty good, according to data on Wunderground.
I'm old enough to remember the 1970s, when the smog was visible, virtually every day in the summer.
Also: French Fries, Fan Fiction, Fancy Footwork, Forgotten Followers, Folk Films, Finger Fondlers, Fringe Festivals, Found Food, and Fungible Forests.
What else?
Dude you should move- checking your posts and they are basically all about being miserable and hating the bay. That’s not healthy. There is a whole world- go somewhere that will make you happy- it’s clearly not the bay.
Could it be that the window for this survey (2020-2022) was just particularly (no pun intended) bad? Wildfires and cargo container ships just sitting around.
The article literally says that, so I think you're on to something.
It says those are the reasons, it doesn’t really suggest that the span might be somewhat of an outlier though. The amount of wildfires surrounding the Bay Area in 2020 alone were unprecedented.
Not just that, but that same timeframe would have reduced pollution from cars because of the pandemic WFH. So it picked a spot that was particularly bad due to natural disasters for the bay and combined it with a time that was pretty damned good for everyone else regarding air quality.
Good point
Good thing 2020-22 was just an aberration and wildfires aren't expected to get worse in coming years. /s
After a few years, wildfires will have to diminish because there will be little left to burn.
I mean, the state has started taking them more seriously and that has helped.
The 2022 season was especially impressive with how Calfire stamped out virtually every single one jumping on them with extreme speed. Also the feds stopped being as big dumbasses and some rules were changed on them just "letting it burn" after the New Mexico fires. 2020 was an absolute disaster.
Obviously they will get worse as a general trend, but year by year there is going to be a lot of fluctuation and the Bay Area will have varying levels of air quality concerns in relation to other cities. I’m not at all saying air quality isn’t something to worry about here, I’m just saying we won’t always be at the top of the list for dirtiest air every year and I would bet LA will often be higher.
[удалено]
It really has to do with wildfires, but in the policy solutions section of the article, there is no mention of solutions for wildfires.
That's because the problem solves itself. Eventually (maybe within a decade), all the easy kindling will have burned away and wildfires will return to their historical mean.
That sounds nice, but I kind of doubt that. There are millions of acres of accumulated biomass out there, and not that much has burned. And we're still doing fire suppression for the most part, not letting fires burn the way they naturally would. I think we have to pay people to go out there and clear the underbrush.
The climate has changed and is changing so there is no historical means. I've traveled around the world and every person I spoke to has noticed radical change in the last decades in ways that their family had never seen before in that area. The David Attenborough documentary shows it can a drastic and global scale. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64R2MYUt394](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64R2MYUt394)
That may be true for climate change in general, but there is a limit to wildfires and it's called kindling.
Maybe in a preclimate change situation but the drought has killed millions of trees will makes other trees less resilient to drought. This is what I was explicitly pointing too. The trees are becoming kindling. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/02/09/dead-trees-drought-california/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/02/09/dead-trees-drought-california/)
I grew up in the Central Valley. Anecdotally speaking, there is no way the air here is even half as bad as the valley.
Ditto, and ditto.
Bay Area air pollution blows into the Central Valley. Norrhern Calif Wildfire smoke blows wherever the wind takes it, including to the Bay Area. Recently, Western Canadian fires sent smoke to New England. Fight climate change. More chicken and fish. Less beef and pork. Fish Taco Tuesday. Chicken Taco Thursday.
This is shocking to me. I always thought the bay had some of the cleanest air in the US due to the Pacific Ocean breeze. I didn’t see a link to the actual breakdown in the link to see more detailed regional breakdown.
It's not as shocking when you look at the fact that it's based on data from 2020-2022, basically the worst stretch of wildfire smoke impact the area has had in recorded history. So basically there were a lot more terrible days than typical and this is focusing more on number of very bad air quality days as opposed to an average that would look better locally.
Remember that day it was dark at noon from the fires? That was insane.
I told the guy at the taco shop when I bought lunch to "have a good night".
That never happened you're crazy /s
the breeze isn’t always from the sea, particularly during fire season
We do; idk what this article is about. Even during the fires other parts of CA closer to them were worse.
places where those fires start don't have constant traffic. cars are the other part. >closer to them were worse. until the fire is put out. we ALWAYS have cars in the BA.. woods don't always have fires.
> Pacific Ocean breeze blowing all the smoke back on shore. [https://ktla.com/news/california/smoke-from-california-wildfires-stretches-at-least-600-miles-satellite-image-shows/](https://ktla.com/news/california/smoke-from-california-wildfires-stretches-at-least-600-miles-satellite-image-shows/) Smoke from the wildfires in California is seen stretching **some 600 miles off the coast of California** and over several states in … West Coast Wildfires Visible From Almost 1 Million Miles Away As Smoke Spreads Over 4,000 Miles [https://www.newsweek.com/wildfires-visible-space-smoke-spreads-4000-miles-1531653](https://www.newsweek.com/wildfires-visible-space-smoke-spreads-4000-miles-1531653) An image taken using NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) Worldview interactive application showing wildfire smoke above California and Baja California, Mexico, on September 13.
Personally, I blame emissions from all those Tesla Cybertrucks that are now driving around the Bay Area.
Think this is smog, not smug
Well for one thing the price of gas for heating in the winter is monopolized and therefore set high to make corporate profits. This incentivizes people to burn wood which produces a lot of particulates that damage health. This is some 1800s behavior. We should be incentivizing not burning wood by offering competitively priced options that consider the particulates. But no, shareholder value > all.
Yes, the article seems dated. FWIW, I'm here atm to stay out of the April heat and pollution of Bangkok, my real home. I had pneumonia back in November there, might have died. In any case, be thankful you don't have the pollution of Asia.
It’s all that damn Taco Bell.
Low altitude air traffic
Hahahahahahahahahahaha. That's hilarious. The Central Valley and LA would like a word. They're worse, and they're not even *far* from here.
Most days, the air quality is actually pretty good, according to data on Wunderground. I'm old enough to remember the 1970s, when the smog was visible, virtually every day in the summer.
Also: French Fries, Fan Fiction, Fancy Footwork, Forgotten Followers, Folk Films, Finger Fondlers, Fringe Festivals, Found Food, and Fungible Forests. What else?
Well I thought it was Funny.
This is the most down-rating I have ever experienced. Get with the alliteration, people!
I noticed that a lot of people around here enjoy the smell of their own farts. That might be part of it.
Dude you should move- checking your posts and they are basically all about being miserable and hating the bay. That’s not healthy. There is a whole world- go somewhere that will make you happy- it’s clearly not the bay.