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Smog, or smoke fog, is a type of intense air pollution. The word "smog" was coined in the early 20th century, and is a portmanteau of the words smoke and fog to refer to smoky fog due to its opacity, and odor. The word was then intended to refer to what was sometimes known as pea soup fog, a familiar and serious problem in London from the 19th century to the mid-20th century, where it was commonly known as a London particular or London fog. This kind of visible air pollution is composed of nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxide, ozone, smoke and other particulates. Man-made smog is derived from coal combustion emissions, vehicular emissions, industrial emissions, forest and agricultural fires and photochemical reactions of these emissions.
In meteorology, an inversion is a layer of warmer air held above colder air. Normally, air temperature gradually decreases as altitude increases, but in an inversion this relationship is reversed.
Donora is a borough in Washington County, Pennsylvania, United States, approximately 20 miles (32 km) south of Pittsburgh along the Monongahela River. The population was 4,558 as of the 2020 census.
The Great Smog of London, or Great Smog of 1952, was a severe air pollution event that affected London, England, in December 1952. A period of unusually cold weather, combined with an anticyclone and windless conditions, collected airborne pollutants—mostly arising from the use of coal—to form a thick layer of smog over the city. It lasted from Friday 5 December to Tuesday 9 December 1952, then dispersed quickly when the weather changed.
Haze is traditionally an atmospheric phenomenon in which dust, smoke, and other dry particulates suspended in air obscure visibility and the clarity of the sky. The World Meteorological Organization manual of codes includes a classification of particulates causing horizontal obscuration into categories of fog, ice fog, steam fog, mist, haze, smoke, volcanic ash, dust, sand, and snow. Sources for particles that cause haze include farming, traffic, industry, windy weather, volcanic activity and wildfires. Seen from afar and depending on the direction of view with respect to the Sun, haze may appear brownish or bluish, while mist tends to be bluish grey instead. Whereas haze often is considered a phenomenon occurring in dry air, mist formation is a phenomenon in saturated, humid air. However, haze particles may act as condensation nuclei that leads to the subsequent vapor condensation and formation of mist droplets; such forms of haze are known as "wet haze".
The Clean Air Act 1956 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom enacted principally in response to London's Great Smog of 1952. It was sponsored by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government in England and the Department of Health for Scotland, and was in effect until 1993.
The 1939 St. Louis smog was a severe smog episode that affected St. Louis, Missouri on November 28, 1939. Visibility was so limited that streetlights remained lit throughout the day and motorists needed their headlights to navigate city streets.
The 2006 Southeast Asian haze was an air pollution event caused by continuous, uncontrolled burning from "slash and burn" cultivation in Indonesia, which affected several countries in the Southeast Asian region and beyond, including Malaysia, Singapore, southern Thailand, and as far away as Saipan; the effects of the haze may have even spread to South Korea. Local sources of industrial pollution also, inadvertently, contributed to increases in air toxicity ; notably at-risk areas included communities close to textile factories, fertilizer plants, meat-packing plants, industrialised dairy farms, shipping ports, and oil refineries. Air quality was lower, overall, for residents of more densely-populated cities. In the highly urban and industrialised Klang Valley of Malaysia, in particular, the surrounding elevated terrain acted as a natural retainer of polluted air, aggravating the situation as the haze set in.
The 1997 Southeast Asian haze was an international air pollution disaster that occurred during the second half of 1997, its after-effects causing widespread atmospheric visibility and health problems within Southeast Asia. Considered the most severe Southeast Asian haze event of all time, the total costs of the 1997 haze are estimated at US$9 billion, due mainly to health care and disruption of air travel and business activities.
Arie Jan Haagen-Smit was a Dutch chemist. He is best known for linking the smog in Southern California to automobiles and is therefore known by many as the "father" of air pollution control. After serving as an original board member of the Motor Vehicle Pollution Control Board, formed in 1960 to combat the smog, Dr. Haagen-Smit became the California Air Resources Board's first chairman in 1968. Shortly before his death in Pasadena, California, of lung cancer, the Air Resources Board's El Monte Laboratory was named after him.
The Southeast Asian haze is a fire-related recurrent transboundary air pollution issue. Haze events, where air quality reaches hazardous levels due to high concentrations of airborne particulate matter from burning biomass, have caused adverse health, environmental and economic impacts in several countries in Southeast Asia. Caused primarily by slash-and-burn land clearing, the problem flares up every dry season to varying degrees and generally is worst between July and October and during El Niño events. Transboundary haze in Southeast Asia has been recorded since 1972 with the 1997 and 2015 events being particularly severe.
The 1948 Donora smog killed 20 people and caused respiratory problems for 6,000 of the 14,000 people living in Donora, Pennsylvania, a mill town on the Monongahela River 24 miles (39 km) southeast of Pittsburgh. The event is commemorated by the Donora Smog Museum.
Pea soup fog is a very thick and often yellowish, greenish or blackish fog caused by air pollution that contains soot particulates and the poisonous gas sulphur dioxide. This very thick smog occurs in cities and is derived from the smoke given off by the burning of soft coal for home heating and in industrial processes. Smog of this intensity is often lethal to vulnerable people such as the elderly, the very young (infants) and those with respiratory problems. The result of these phenomena was commonly known as a London particular or London fog; in a reversal of the idiom, "London particular" became the name for a thick pea and ham soup.
Air pollution has been an ongoing problem in many countries in the Southeast Asia region, and Malaysia is one of the worst affected. Haze has been a major issue for the country, driven by slash and burn practices by farmers and peat fires blown by the wind from Indonesia.
The 1930 Meuse Valley fog between 1 December and 5 December, killed 63 people in Belgium owing to a combination of industrial air pollution and a localized weather inversion.
A dense wave of smog began in Northeast China, especially in major cities including Harbin, Changchun and Shenyang, as well as the surrounding Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning provinces on 20 October 2013. Unseasonably warm temperatures with very little wind across northeastern China coincided with the initiation of Northeast China's coal-powered municipal heating system. Record densities of fine particulates were measured in the city.
The 2015 Southeast Asian haze was an air pollution crisis affecting several countries in Southeast Asia, including Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, southern Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and the Philippines.
The 1966 New York City smog was a major air-pollution episode and environmental disaster, coinciding with that year's Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Smog covered the city and its surrounding area from November 23 to 26, filling the city's air with damaging levels of several toxic pollutants. It was the third major smog in New York City, following events of similar scale in 1953 and 1963.
Janet Rutherford Holm was a New Zealand environmental activist and historian.
The 1962 London smog was a severe smog episode that affected London, England, in December 1962. It occurred ten years after the Great Smog of London, in which serious air pollution had killed as many as 12,000 people. While the 1952 smog had led to the passing of the 1956 Clean Air Act, which restricted the burning of domestic fuels in urban areas with the introduction of smokeless zones, fogs continued to be smoky in London for some years after the act as residents and operators were given time to convert from domestic fuels. The December 1962 smog is thought to have led to the deaths of up to 700 people.
References
- ↑ "Air Pollution Episodes: a Citizen Handbook". US Environmental Protection Agency. 1971.
- ↑ "Nov. 28 1939: The day 'Black Tuesday' rolled into St. Louis | Post-Dispatch Archives". stltoday.com.
- ↑ "Smog Deaths in 1948 Led to Clean Air Laws". NPR.org.
- ↑ "The Great Smog of 1952 recalled". BBC News.
- ↑ "A nation of fire: What should we learn from the 1997/1998 haze? - National - The Jakarta Post".
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