This was posted a few days ago at Professor Cliff Mass’s Weather Blog
Every year there is a major air pollution spike on the fourth of July, with small particles (PM2.5) surging during the evening. To illustrate, here are the concentrations of small particles (PM2.5, sizes less than 2.5 microns) for June 15 to July 15th for 2018 and 2019. Huge upticks of pollution for late July 4th and early July 5th.
2019
2018 These high levels of small particles are quite unhealthful, aggravating ailments such as asthma and heart disease.
There are, of course, two sources of the such fireworks pollution: large community displays and personal fireworks. The former typically use large shells propelled by large mortars, injecting more particles higher into the atmosphere. Personal fireworks are more numerous and widespread, but the densest concentrations of pollutants are near the surface.
I have always wondered: what are the relative contributions of the professional/community displays versus personal fireworks in terms of contributions to air pollution and the big spikes in particles (like shown below). It was difficult to secure an answer because both happened at the same time.
But this year, a controlled experiment is going to take place on July 4th: most community fireworks displayed were cancelled, while there are reports of “healthy” sales of personal fireworks. Will there be a similar peak in pollutants? Will air quality decline more because folks will go for big shows to provide distraction from all their current troubles? We will know by next Sunday.
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I just got home from my son’s house. His neighborhood sounded like a war zone. As I left, a pall of smoke had settled on the neighborhood. As I drove home, I wondered if this was going on all over the country, what would it do to the co2 levels at stations like Mauna Loa?
Alan,
I hope you didn’t spend too much time wondering about Mauna Loa CO2 levels. My guess on the effect is next to nothing, nada, zilch.
Firstly the pall of smoke doesn’t really represent CO2 which is odourless and colourless – unless you’ve fallen for the “smokestack images” of the water cooling towers of our beloved MSM propaganda outlets.
It will all get lost in the Approx 9 billion tons of “man made” CO2 which is released each year, but remember this large amount is only about 3% of the total, the other 97% is a result of natural emissions.
I have no idea how much CO2 is released from neighbourhood fireworks, but seriously doubt that it competes with 300,000,000,000 TONS of the stuff.
SteveT
There is a lot of junk in PM 2.5 “science”. Our public health schools are infested with zealots and charlatans. And what about all that holiday BBQ smoke?
https://www.accuweather.com/en/us/adel-ia/50003/weather-forecast/332989
The sky was lit last night and this AM the air is brutal
Oh, almost forgot. I added to it by smoking a Pork Butt for 8 hours.
Well I did my part last night. Had my aged father and other family and friends over for Kabobs off the grill. 13 large skewers worth along with rice, baked mac & cheese, and applesauce bars with cream cheese icing.
I have a 2″ x 10″ board with five PVC mortar tubes nailed to it. With some help sent up over 200 3″ shells from those last night plus 2 each 12 shot 3″ densepacks and 6 each 12 shot 2″ dense packs with of course the usual roman candles and such. Went though the whole shebang in about 40 minutes. My backyard is a mess this morning.
The 4th is also has the highest usage of BBQ grills. (I just made up that statistic.)
How do you factor the enormous amount of smoke generated from the grilling process into the equation?
Why not compare the 4th to New Year’s Eve? Lots of big professional displays on New Year’s Eve. All over the world.
“But this year, a controlled experiment is going to take place on July 4th”
Not much about this is controlled by the scientist.
Our local community displays were all canceled.
In our neighborhood there were more personal fireworks going off by (if I were going to guess) an order of magnitude than normal.
So I don’t think you can draw any comparisons. The total level of fireworks expended may be basically the same as during a year with large community displays…or it may be slightly less, or it may be a bunch more, there’s just know way to really know. I can say that within earshot of my house, it sounded like a battle was going on from before sunset to after midnight. It’s not normally nearly that pervasive and long lasting.
By the way, the whole time I was thinking “this would be a great time for an invasion…no one would even notice until it was all over with”.
This is funny. There were more professional displays around the 4th then normal. All the fairs were canceled and it seems everyone blew them off that weekend. I even heard a show before dark, they must not have had to stagger because there were not enough workers. We normally have one display in my area of upstate NY that weekend and I heard 6 go off that weekend.