Learning about Air Quality: 3 (Future)

Introduction:

This tutorial is meant to complement other forms of learning about this subject area, and there are three parts to this: 
 

• Learning from Past examples
• Learning from the Present (using today's air quality data)
• Learning from the future (Especially tomorrow's air quality forecast) i.e. this page

3. Learning from the Future

• To achieve an understanding of the relationships between air quality, and meteorological conditions
• To be able to relate current air quality parameters to a forecast of air quality for the following day

Tomorrow's air quality:

Are tomorrow's emissions at your location, or the locations about which you are interested, likely to be more or less than today's e.g if you are interested in an urban area - is traffic likely to be higher or lower? 

Now consider tomorrow's weather conditions - are they likely to favour high, or low concentrations? You may access a 24 hour weather forecast from the Met Office. Unfortunately  the Met Office is somewhat limited in its free on-line information, since you may be particularly interested in more detail in the wind conditions in a particular locality. You may wish to look at a better UK weather map instead . Such an image would show the wind speed and direction, temperature, and isobars etc forecast for the British Isles. You may look one up in today's newspaper or try to access one online. 

• If the windspeeds in the weather forecast are low, then this may favour poorer air quality generally i.e. from a number of pollutants.(Bearing in mind that high winds tend to disperse pollution, whereas in still conditions pollutants will tend to accumulate)
• Heavy rain may help clear some pollutants. 
• If sunlight is substantial, secondary pollution specifically caused by ozone, might be a feature.

The accompanying image shows Tomorrow's Air Quality Forecast for the UK. How does it compare with your expectations? The chances are that the quality will be labelled as 'Very Good', but if it is not, can you find an explanation? 

To recapitulate...

• Emissions of primary pollutants might be high, because of traffic, or other sources of combustion of a localised nature. 
• If sunlight is substantial, secondary pollution caused by ozone, might be a feature. 
• If the windspeeds in the weather forecast are low, then this may favour poorer air quality. 

Beyond tomorrow's air quality: 

• Remember to come back to this site again, at other times, when air quality is likely to be different from today. 
• In summer if the day is sunny and relatively warm, still and hazy - conditions favouring a summer photochemical smog - gather information about the weather, then return to this or the previous resource, and see what the pollution is like.
• In winter if the weather is cold and relatively still, foggy and misty - conditions favouring a 'temperature' inversion with cold smog containing air trapped close to the ground - then seek further information about the weather, and return to this or the previous resource, and see what the pollution data is like.

Other questions...

Work is in progress to adapt teaching material that answers these questions, or to provide links to other sites which do. 

• Introduction on Air Quality, Pollution and Health
• Can airborne pollutants cause asthma?
• Other Frequently_Asked_Questions about Health and the Environment
• Directory of Internet Sites in Occupational & Environmental Health - Air Quality Data (followed by other weather links on the same page).

Acknowledgements etc

• The data on UK Air Quality have been collated on behalf of the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions from the various automated networks by AEA Technology, who are also responsible for the air quality forecast.
• An example of an online newspaper weather map on WWW is from the Daily Telegraph