
Real-time air pollution map - bookofjoe
https://www.purpleair.com/map#1/25/-30
======
TeMPOraL
I'm saddened by the balkanization of air monitoring space. This map shows few
PurpleAir sensors in Poland, but there are in fact many more sensors like this
in existence - some under a FOSS project Luftdaten[0], others operated by a
particular local startup. I recently built a Luftdaten sensor myself (though
I'm yet to connect it to the project map). I expect the situation in other
countries to be similar.

I wish all those air monitoring organizations and companies cooperated on a
single map. This data really needs to be aggregated together.

\--

[0] - [https://luftdaten.info/](https://luftdaten.info/)

~~~
toomuchtodo
Could US users easily buy and deploy these sensors (EDIT: from Luftdaten,
since my comment wasn't clear)? Or must one build them?

~~~
theptrk
they sell them here
[https://www.purpleair.com/sensors](https://www.purpleair.com/sensors)

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mschurig
Huge project by the german open data community:
[http://maps.luftdaten.info/#4/44.54/7.52](http://maps.luftdaten.info/#4/44.54/7.52)

~~~
unicornporn
Available in range of locales.

[https://luftdata.se/](https://luftdata.se/) for us swedes!

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vackosar
Isn't [http://aqicn.org](http://aqicn.org) better? It seems quite real time
and uses more stations at least above The Czech Republic.

~~~
simongray
I used to use that when I lived in Beijing, but when it comes to
visualisation, nothing beats this site:
[https://www.airvisual.com/earth](https://www.airvisual.com/earth)

You don't really get a feel for how the clouds of pollution move around in the
other maps.

~~~
rsync
"I used to use that when I lived in Beijing, but when it comes to
visualisation, nothing beats this site:
[https://www.airvisual.com/earth"](https://www.airvisual.com/earth")

Which sensor network does that site get data from ?

Also, as I look at this map today, what is going on just northeast of Mexico
city ?

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minimaxir
PurpleAir received a lot of notoriety during the California fires last month
after the official AIRNow site
([https://airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=airnow.local_city&cityid...](https://airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=airnow.local_city&cityid=317))
crashed from the traffic.

The AQIs given by default are higher than what's reported on the AIRNow;
you'll have to apply a conversion in the bottom-left to get something closer.

~~~
jonathankoren
The AQIs reported by purple air are US EPA PM NowCast[0] AQIs for PM 2.5.
NowCast, uses weighted averages over the past 12 hours of observations, rather
than a simple arithmetic mean over the past 24 hour like the regular EPA AQI
standard. NowCast was developed to be more sensitive to current conditions in
order to help people make better immediate descisions about their health. The
normal AQI standard was developed for long term air quality monitoring.

The other thing that can effect the numbers is that AQIs are defined across a
range of pollutants (usually PM 2.5, PM 10, CO, NO2, O3, and SO2) PurpleAir
sensors only measure PM 2.5 and PM 10, but I think the numbers they show are
only PM 2.5.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NowCast_(air_quality_index)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NowCast_\(air_quality_index\))

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clumsysmurf
Since 2015 Google Street View cars have been driving around with Aclima air
pollution sensors. The interesting thing, is that pollution varied greatly
block to block with no obvious explanation. I think to get a good result, you
need a sensor very close to you.

~~~
londons_explore
Could it depend if the car was following a truck at the time?

On my bicycle on London, I really notice the difference between busses with
the tailpipe on the left or right side of the vehicle even.

~~~
ndnxhs
Absolutely. I always hold my breath and hit the brakes if a bus gets in front
of me. Trucks aren't so bad as they have the exhaust pipe pointing right up in
the air. Just the amount of traffic at the time makes a huge difference as
well. At peak hour times I have breathing issues but other times its
acceptable.

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ryan_j_naughton
One of these sensors is right outside my balcony (specifically one in West Los
Angeles / Santa Monica). I set it up as part of a RAND Corporation study, and
I've really enjoyed being able to get hyperlocal data.

~~~
derrekl
They still giving out sensors? Not sure I live far enough away from you to
merit another for the study, but worth an ask.

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pwarner
It's sad how bad bay area air is at night. Fireplaces seem fun, but really
don't work in California valleys.

~~~
ndnxhs
I heard that industrial buildings crank up their pollution at night because
people don't see it to complain about.

~~~
clumsysmurf
In the city here, I always see those trucks modified to vacuum debris from
parking lots. They begin their "cleaning" thing around 12AM. They seem to just
shoot the stuff right up into the air and make a huge mess. Not sure if they
are supposed to work that way, or the machinery isn't being maintained, etc.

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Jipazgqmnm
The real time is a nice toy but all together to me it looks like a stripped
down version of [https://earth.nullschool.net](https://earth.nullschool.net)

E.g.:
[https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/particulates/surface/l...](https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/particulates/surface/level/overlay=pm2.5/orthographic=-343.80,43.25,1182)

~~~
edge17
that's wind data, not air pollution

~~~
dredmorbius
False.

Nullschool's visualiser gives wind, yes, but also temperatures, ocean
currents, wave heights, and numerous pollutants: CO, CO2, SO4, and particulate
matter.

It's useful in tracking bushfire evolution, carbon emissions, and even sea
lanes visible by the sulfer emissions due to high-sulfer bunker oil burnt by
ships:

[https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/chem/surface/level/ove...](https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/chem/surface/level/overlay=so2smass/orthographic=-14.41,-9.10,1345/loc=-18.561,-0.671)

[https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/chem/surface/level/ove...](https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/chem/surface/level/overlay=so2smass/orthographic=76.13,-1.70,1345/loc=-18.561,-0.671)

Also of volcanos:

[https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/chem/surface/level/ove...](https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/chem/surface/level/overlay=so2smass/orthographic=203.11,16.62,2689/loc=-155.353,18.644)

There's history as well. Here's CO emissions during the Camp fire, 10 November
2018:

[https://earth.nullschool.net/#2018/11/10/0900Z/chem/surface/...](https://earth.nullschool.net/#2018/11/10/0900Z/chem/surface/level/overlay=cosc/orthographic=244.46,34.92,3000/loc=-120.915,36.821)

And PM2.5:

[https://earth.nullschool.net/#2018/11/10/0900Z/particulates/...](https://earth.nullschool.net/#2018/11/10/0900Z/particulates/surface/level/overlay=pm2.5/orthographic=244.46,34.92,3000/loc=-120.915,36.821)

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abido
There are a lot of community initiatives to measure and map air pollution
data. They operate independently of each other because of known data quality
issues that is characteristic of the low-cost sensors they use. However, would
be great if there was an initiative to bring all these measurements in one
platform.

There is OpenAQ ([https://openaq.org/](https://openaq.org/)) that aggregates
all publicly available air quality data from government and research-grade
sources. They don't have the funds to aggregate low-cost sensor data, and one
big reason is the poor data quality.

You will see from the OpenAQ map that much of the world is without government
monitoring of air quality.

I live in one such country, and I run the Pakistan Air Quality Initiative
([http://twitter.com/pakairquality](http://twitter.com/pakairquality)) where
we work with concerned citizens to monitor air quality in a number of major
cities using the IQair AirVisual air quality monitors. Our data currently
shows on the (www.airvisual.com) website, but would be great to have the data
available through an aggregation platform similar to OpenAQ

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londons_explore
It uses a vector draggable openstreeetmap map... Never knew that was a thing!

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jonathankoren
I have a weather station and use WeeWx[0] to monitor my Vantage2 Pro, and
PurpleAir sensor using an extension[1].

I’ve been working on an my own extension[2] to calculate AQI values for
various standards. Right now it supports six.

\- Canada's Air Quality Health Index

\- India's National Air Quality Index

\- Mexico's Índice Metropolitano de la Calidad del Aire

\- United Kingdom's Daily Air Quality Index

\- United States's Air Quality Index

\- United States's NowCast Air Quality Index

I’m always looking to add more (The EU’s standard is high on my list.), and
would welcome more people to use it.

[0] [http://weewx.com/](http://weewx.com/)

[1] [https://github.com/bakerkj/weewx-
purpleair](https://github.com/bakerkj/weewx-purpleair)

[2] [https://github.com/jonathankoren/weewx-
aqi](https://github.com/jonathankoren/weewx-aqi)

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etxm
This is great. I’ve sworn since I’ve moved to Pasadena that the air has been
much fresher than my last neighborhood.

133 down to 53!

I’ll have to take my lungs out for a drink to celebrate.

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craigzucchini
This is really really cool, but seems a little buggy in Firefox on my mac.
Took quite a while for the clusters to show up, and then they went away after
clicking on one and zooming back out. Would be great to see some more
informative UI controls as well. Without existing knowledge, I'm not too sure
what the drop box on the right hand side is for example.

~~~
jonathankoren
That’s just the PurpleAir site. It’s like that for all browsers for years. By
how crappy it is, I think they’re naïvely trying to render ever sensor in the
view window.

------
amelius
There's also a satellite measuring pollution:

[https://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/Coper...](https://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/Copernicus/Sentinel-5P/Sentinel-5P_brings_air_pollution_into_focus)

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heyjudy
I used PurpleAir maps during the Camp Fire; small particulates in east Chico
were off the charts.

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ronzensci
Realtime PM2.5 monitoring in India can be seen here:
[http://atmos.urbansciences.in/dashboard](http://atmos.urbansciences.in/dashboard)

Many of these sensors are colocated with FEM/FRM grade BAM monitors.

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fluxty
This is pretty cool. As a runner, I try to stay indoors when the weather is
bad, but I also wonder if there are highly local pollution patterns related to
traffic. Ideally, you could identify something like that with a tool like
this.

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jonathankoren
Does anyone know of an inexpensive sensor that measures other things than
particulate matter?

Once I got a PurpleAir, I started to want to measure ozone and other
pollutants, but I haven’t found a sensor (or even sensor component) that
measures that.

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cboy5675
What map is this using? No RTL support for right to left languages

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afterburner
197 in New Haven, CT. Next to a factory or something?

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black-tea
I'm surprised that the UK is all green even in London. I'd like to set one of
these up near a busy road that connects our biggest port, but they're
prohibitively expensive. This surely biases the results towards areas where
rich people who have money to burn live.

~~~
kingosticks
I'm also surprised to see there are no sensors near the major London airports.

Northern Italy is all red, what's going on there?!

