aqi Levels in China for October and November

[Chris Two Times]

Hearing about the pollution in Beijing and seeing it in the news is one thing. Coming here and experiencing it firsthand is quite another.

 

I arrived in mid-September and enjoyed low pollution levels and blue skies in my first few weeks here. After the October National Day holiday week, the pollution started to get bad--had my first 400+ day then.

 

At that point I decided to chart the aqi levels and follow them on a regular basis. I may use this when deciding where to study next year. I want to be in Beijing to study, but I also want to be in a place with lower pollution levels...can't have everything I guess.

 

The following is an unscientific report of the aqi levels in various Chinese and international cities for October and November. I simply checked www.aqicn.org whenever I felt like it and recorded the aqi levels at that particular moment based on data from the website.

 

For what it's worth...it's far from perfect, but this may be useful to some.

 

Any guesses for the least and most polluted cities?

 

Warm regards,

Chris Two Times

China aqi.xlsx

[grawrt]

Just curious, which AQI app do you follow?

 

I remember Saturday's AQI being higher than what you have listed. I remember because me and my roommate sat in our overheated room because the pollution levels were in the 300s and neither of us dared to open the window. lol. At least I'm pretty sure it was Saturday. I like that you included the time stamps, though it's plain to see you don;t wake up earlier than 10 AM . I find the pollution levels are much higher in the morning when I get up.

 

Also, I didn't realize how horrible Harbin's pollution is.

[Chris Two Times]

www.aqicn.org

 

Haha! Sometimes I get up before 10AM, I'm just not usually on the Internet before then. That's the flaw in my "research"--not really any early AM times. I did try to vary the times though.

 

One note: for Shanghai, Shenyang, Chengdu, Guangzhou, and Beijing, I use the readings at the U.S. consulates and embassy. For Chengdu, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, those readings may usually be the same as the general city reading. For Beijing, the U.S. Embassy reading may be lower than the general city reading and in Shenyang it may be higher.

 

Warm regards,

Chris Two Times

[Chris Two Times]

I didn't list it on that chart but I also remember this past Saturday's aqi level for Beijing being around 345 in the afternoon.

 

Warm regards,

Chris Two Times

[Demonic_Duck]

Welp, I'm moving to Kunming.

[Chris Two Times]

I have thought the same thing about Kunming. I would love to return to the Southwest. Even Guiyang, which didn't look so promising in the beginning of October, had lower aqi levels than many places in China--but I guess it's really all relative in the aqi scheme of things.

 

From time to time, I think about "getting off the beaten path" (whatever that means in 2014 China) and living somewhere in Guizhou for a year.

 

Warm regards,

Chris Two Times

[Demonic_Duck]

Well, I say that as an offhand comment, but honestly I 舍不得 Beijing. I mean, leaving Beijing would be leaving all my friends, all the places I'm familiar with. Sort of like moving to China all over again.

 

That said, I'd certainly recommend taking these things into account for people thinking of emigrating to China, though of course air quality isn't everything.

[Tianjin42]

Harbin... a few really nasty days.

[gato]

The U.S. consulate's calculation weighting for AQI is different from the Chinese government's, so the two sets of numbers are not comparable and should probably be listed separately.

[Chris Two Times]

From that website: "The pollution indices and color codes available on this web site follow the EPA graduation, as defined by AirNow and explained in wikipedia."

 

Warm regards,

Chris Two Times

[Chris Two Times]

From the bottom of that website:

 

The Data sources used for the Air Quality, Air Pollution, PM_2.5 (fine particulate matter), PM₁₀ (respirable particulate matter), NO₂ (nitrogen dioxide), SO₂ (sulfur dioxide), CO (carbon monoxide), O₃ (ozone) and Weather data in this page are coming from:
 

• Weather Underground
• Beijing Environmental Protection Monitoring Center (北京市环境保护监测中心)
• China National Urban air quality real-time publishing platform (全国城市空气质量实时发布平台)
• U.S Embassy Beijing Air Quality Monitor (美国驻北京大使馆空气质量监测)
• Shanghai Environment Monitoring Center(上海市环境监测中心)
• U.S. Consulate Shanghai Air Quality Monitor
• Guangdong Environmental Protection public network (广东环境保护公众网)
• U.S. Consulate Guangzhou Air Quality Monitor
• Sichuan Province Environmental Protection Agency (四川省环保重点城市环境空气质量实时监测结果)
• U.S. Consulate Chengdu Air Quality Monitor
• Hong Kong Environmental Protection Department
• Jiangsu Province PM2.5 Air Monitoring Comission (江苏省城市空气PM2.5等试运行监测数据平台)
• Shenzhen Environment Network (深圳人居环境网)
• Tianjin Environmental Monitoring Center (天津市环境监测中心)
• Weather forecast powered by Yahoo

[icebear]

Well, I say that as an offhand comment, but honestly I 舍不得 Beijing. I mean, leaving Beijing would be leaving all my friends, all the places I'm familiar with. Sort of like moving to China all over again.

 

 

This. What Beijing lacks in air quality and traffic (the latter I don't care much about), it makes up for in essentially every other dimension... and most importantly social and professional opportunities.

[gato]

One note: for Shanghai, Shenyang, Chengdu, Guangzhou, and Beijing, I use the readings at the U.S. consulates and embassy. For Chengdu, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, those readings may usually be the same as the general city reading.

 

The US consulate index and the Chinese government's index have different index levels. 

 

See the tierings chart below used in the US and China calculations to understand the difference between the two. 

 

For example, for PM2.5, 15.5 mcg/m3 corresponds to AQI of 50 in the US calculation, whereas in China's calculation, AQI of 50 is 35 mcg/m3.  That's more than twice as much under China's standards.  Thus, AQIs under Chinese government's calculation will be generally much lower.

 

Comparing the US consulate's AQI for one city with the Chinese government's AQI for another won't be very meaningful.

 

http://www.epa.gov/ttn/oarpg/t1/memoranda/rg701.pdf (page 17 of PDF)

AQI Tiers (US) (Tiers are also referred to as "breakpoints")

 

http://kjs.mep.gov.cn/hjbhbz/bzwb/dqhjbh/jcgfffbz/201203/W020120410332725219541.pdf (page 8 of PDF)

AQI Tiers (China)

A nice summary of the differences:

http://www.livefrombeijing.com/2013/01/demystifying-air-quality-numbers/

Observations:

1) The US is more strict at low concentrations.

2) The systems are identical above a concentration of 150 (AQI of 200).

3) Neither system is linear, which is annoying and non-intuitive.

4) It is also very annoying that the numbers are so close (as opposed to a 1-10 index, for example). This means it is very easy to confuse AQI and concentration.

By the way, thanks the tabulation. This is somewhat of a technicality. Just thought you should use the Chinese government AQIs to make the numbers more comparable across the different cities.

[Chris Two Times]

Thanks for the note, gato. Duly noted.

 

I will continue to use that website (www.aqicn.org) for my sources but I will no longer use the U.S. consulate readings listed on that website; I will simply take the very first reading listed for a city--the general reading, if you will.

 

Warm regards,

Chris Two Times