I grew up in the mountains, away from any large cities, and so smog was something I only heard about.
I knew it was bad. I knew it was in the atmosphere over cities. I knew it was caused by pollution.
But I didn’t know that you could see it.
I found out otherwise when I moved to San Diego and noticed a certain haze that appeared on some days. Someone then identified it for me: That’s smog.
I had no idea.
California take extensive measures to try to cut down on smog. You have to get your car checked on a regular basis to see whether it meets the state’s automotive emissions guidelines (or they won’t renew your license tag). There are ads for "Smog Check"s at virtually all of the filling stations that aren’t tied to a convenience store.
Apparently the smog is much better these days than it was back in the 1970s. It’s also better in San Diego than it is in Los Angeles.
But lately it’s been really bad where I live, in El Cajon (on the outskirts of San Diego). It’s not as bad as in the picture above (that’s of a Moscow rush hour), but it’s bad enough that I can’t see the hills the way I’m supposed to be able to. There’s a haze between me and the hills, and there’s so much haze between me and the most distant hills that I can barely make them out.
It’s not normally this bad, but it’s no fun for allergy sufferers with all that particulate matter in the air.
While I was researching this subject I found a government-run web site that contains air quality forecasts and maps for the whole country.
Yesterday we had an unexpected set of thunderstorms (rare phenomena here in SoCal), which washed a lot of it out of the air, so we had a better day today. The previous couple of weeks, though, the haze was really bad.
Like the day I drove out to the Salton Sea.
It was interesting to note that as soon as I got out of El Cajon and drove up in the mountains to Alpine (15 miles away and about 1500 feet higher above sea level), all the smog had vanished and you could see the hills clear as a bell, no matter how far away they were.
More on the trip later.
Down the pan goes my plan of a holiday in California, with my asthma I’d be sightseeing from the window of a hotel room.
God Bless.
We visited San Diego in July for a couple of weeks (Rancho Sante Fe area). They referred to the haze as “the marine layer.” Maybe that was a high-falutin’ way of saying “smog”?
BTW, San Deigo is just beautiful, “marine layer” or not.
‘thann
Marine layer is different from smog – it’s more along the lines of fog. Here’s a satellite image on the difference. http://www.scikits.com/not
BTW UKOK, if you want to come to so cal without smog, come in Dec/Jan and go to the Getty Museum. (www.getty.edu) You’ll get a fabulous view of the ocean on one hand and the snowy mountains on the other. It’s modern architecture but beautiful. (and it’s free!)
Jimmy,
Visibility is not a good indicator of air quality. The greyish haze that you see could be smog, or it could be water vapor, or sea haze or some combination of the two. The brown smudge that you see on the horizon is NO2, which is very ugly, but not as dangerous as ozone, which is entirely invisible. If you continue your research, you’ll find out that the ozone levels are actually much higher in Alpine than in San Diego (because ozone rises!) The visibility is better, but it is actually MORE dangerous to be outside and active up there than down in San Diego. Check out http://www.sdapcd.org/info/FAQS/faqs.html#highest re Alpine’s air quality, and http://www.sdapcd.org/info/FAQS/faqs.html re San Diego’s air quality generally.
BTW, I’m glad to see you’re concerned about smog. I’m curious to know whether you think this is a problem that can be solved by the free market approach you generally favor. It would seem to be a classic externality problem, or a “tragedy of the commons” problem. Would you consider tackling that in a post?
Jimmy,
I don’t think what you are describing is necessarily smog. I tend to agree with decker in that it is a combo of haze with a little smog. I live up the coast a bit in Orange County and we get the same thing.
A better indicator would be to go to your local Air Pollution Control District (APCD) web site (http://www.sdapcd.org/) and look at the data. A quick look this morning shows that El Cajon has a “moderate” air quality index of around “60”. 0-50 is considered good. 51-100 is considered moderate. So not really “bad” as smog goes.
LA/OC has their own air quality website (aqmd.gov). (Their map page is http://www.aqmd.gov/telemweb/areamap.aspx)