The air quality in New York was among the worst in the world while towns in the eastern United States were engulfed in smoke from the forest fires that ravaged the west coast of the country several thousand miles away.
New York state officials have advised vulnerable people, such as those with asthma and heart disease, to avoid strenuous outdoor activities as air pollution has soared in arrow to eclipse Lima in Peru and Kolkata in India to be ranked among the worst in the world. Tuesday.
Smoke from over 80 major wildfires in the western United States caused hazy skies and decreased air quality in cities in the eastern United States and Canada including Philadelphia, Washington DC, Pittsburgh and Toronto, as well as New York City, causing fiery sunrises and even bathing the moon in an unusual red hue on Tuesday night .
Wednesday morning, the air quality index increased to 157 in Manhattan, well above the threshold of 100 where health is considered to be at risk. Vulnerable people include pregnant women and the elderly, although even healthy people outside of these groups may experience shortness of breath, sore throats and tears when exposed to such bad air.
“I think it’s unusual to have this kind of haze, I don’t remember seeing this kind of thing.” saying George Pope, professor of land and environmental studies at Montclair State University, who added he couldn’t see Manhattan from his New Jersey office. “You can almost always see the horizon, at least a silhouette, if it’s a foggy day. It’s, like, it’s unprecedented. ”
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Example of satellite imagery that smoke from the fires in the west spread across Canada and spread east, plunging states like Minnesota into unsanitary atmospheric conditions. Winds can easily carry small particles of soot emitted by fire from trees and vegetation, called PM2.5, over great distances. These PM2.5 particles can, when inhaled, enter the lungs and cause a variety of health problems.
“We see a lot of fires that produce a huge amount of smoke,” said David Lawrence, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. “By the time the smoke reaches the eastern part of the country, where it usually dissolves, there is so much smoke in the air from all these fires that it is still quite thick.”
This is the second year in a row that smoke from massive wildfires in the western United States has traveled 3,000 miles east, with the western states scorched by ongoing drought and high temperatures. high levels caused by climate change caused by humans.
Smoke will drift away from New York in the coming days, but more widespread wildfires are expected in the coming months, and people in the western US will be hit the hardest by the smoke, as well as the direct threat of les flammes.
David Turnbull, a US Climate Action Network activist living in Portland, Oregon, tweeted that east coast dwellers should beware of the unhealthy air, but also “be careful how you talk about hazy skies.” Your astonishment on this matter is our fear here in the west. Your curiosity is our constant fear. We live every day for months in fear that the winds will change, that fires will burn, and that smoke will come. ”
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