The Air in Beijing

It’s been fascinating, when watching the Olympics in Beijing, to see how dramatically the air quality can change from day to day.  Or at least the weather.  Because it is true that what we might think is smog may be a low and cloudy ceiling.

At least that’s the conclusion I came to after reviewing the day-to-day pictures of Beijing published on the web site of the Asia Society.

They asked a photographer to shoot the view out his window every day from March 2007 to today – and then correlated it with the air-quality index.

The best day so far was on August 12, five days into the Games.

Best Day - Pollution Index 12

The worst was on December 28, 2007:

Worst Day - Pollution Index 500

Interesting that a clear blue day does not necessarily mean the best air quality.  Even more interesting will be to see what happens after the games, when all the cars return to the roads and the closed industrial plants start up again.

The Asia Society’s web site with a short video on Beijinjg’s air quality challenge is here.