London has been put on “very high” alert as cold and still weather, traffic and a peak in the use of wood-burning stoves combined to send air pollution soaring in the capital and across swaths of the UK.
According to data from King’s College London, areas of London including Camden, the City of London and the City of Westminster all reached 10 out of 10 on the air pollution index, with many other areas rated seven or higher.
The forecast for yesterday was that air pollution levels would remain unacceptably high in the capital, with pollution levels expected to similarly persist in other areas across the nation.
Photo: Bloomberg
“Today the shameful state of London’s toxic air has meant that I am forced to trigger the first ‘very high’ air pollution alert under my new comprehensive alert system,” Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said. “This is the highest level of alert and everyone — from the most vulnerable to the physically fit — may need to take precautions to protect themselves from the filthy air.”
Researchers said the pollution is primarily down to particulates, although nitrogen dioxide is expected to reach moderate levels at roadsides in the rush hour.
“This is a particularly bad pollution episode,” King’s College London environmental research group member Timothy Baker said. “The peak we saw [on Sunday] night was the highest level [of PM2.5] since April 2011 as an average across London.”
PM2.5 refers to fine particulate matter measuring 2.5 micrometers or smaller in diameter.
According to the latest data from the British Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, by Monday evening eight regions of the UK were rated as having high or very high levels of air pollution, including the southeast, southwest, the east Midlands and Northern Ireland.
In particular, parts of Bristol, Belfast and Nottingham were among those flagged as having high 24-hour mean levels of PM2.5.
Baker and his colleagues said that London’s plummeting air quality was down to the onset of chilly weather and a lack of wind that had enabled the accumulation of local pollutants, with high levels of particulates from traffic and wood burning adding to the problem.
“This episode is actually a perfect illustration of all the things that control air pollution,” Baker said. “The weather conditions happened to coincide with the two peaks — one from the traffic, one from the wood burning — and then that was on top of what we had already built up locally over a number of days and a bit coming in from the continent.”
A similar set of ingredients, he added, was likely to be behind the increase in air pollution in other regions of the UK and Europe.
The continued cold snap meant that the city’s problem was unlikely to clear until later in the week, with particulate levels for yesterday forecast to remain high to very high, he said.
“The wood-burning contribution we’ll expect to fall a little, but the traffic contribution we are expecting to increase,” he said.
While the wind is expected to pick up later in the week, dispersing local emissions, there was a chance that imports of air pollution from the continent could increase.
In response to the high levels of air pollution, people were being advised to reduce physical exertion, while pedestrians could also reduce their risks by using side roads to reach their destinations, Baker said.
“Even though pollution is elevated everywhere across London at the moment, you can still limit your exposure somewhat by just not walking along main roads,” he said.
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