We’ve poked a lot of fun at China and their serious smog problem. (Just this week, Beijing schools had their very first “smog day.” It’s just like a “snow day”, except you can’t go outside and write your name in it.) But, as it turns out, China is not the only country to produce super-thick smog. India does it, too. And, from the point of view of human health, India’s smog may actually be worse!
The World Health Organization just released a list of the Top 20 smoggiest cities, and 13 of them are in India (plus 1 in Bangladesh and 3 in Pakistan). Not a single Chinese city was anywhere in the Top 20! I’d consider taking back some of things I’ve said about China, except that 1) I never lied (although I did quote Brian Williams), and 2) the Chinese government is now instituting “smog days” because the smog is so bad. What I will do is stop comparing every type of air pollution to Chinese smog. From now on (at least until they start making some positive changes), India is the paragon of poor air quality on this blog.
Since VIIRS has no trouble seeing Chinese smog, it should have no problem seeing Indian smog. And it doesn’t:
VIIRS True Color RGB composite of channels M-4, M-4 and M-5 (07:14 UTC 18 November 2015).
You guessed it: all that gray area is optically thick smog! Let’s not forget, too, that India is the seventh largest country in world (2.4% of the Earth’s total surface area!), which is quite a large area to be covered by smog.
In the True Color image above from 18 November 2015, you can see that the people of Tibet are grateful for the Himalayas, which are an effective barrier to the smog. They may not get much air up there on the highest plateau in the world, but what little there is is much cleaner than what’s down below!
If your respiratory system is sensitive to this kind of thing, you might not want to read any further. Consider this your trigger warning. For those few brave enough to continue – prepare yourself, because it gets worse!
Here’s another VIIRS True Color image from 14 November 2015:
VIIRS True Color RGB composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (06:50 UTC 14 November 2015).
Now it’s even harder to see the background surface along the base of the Himalayas. And, it’s easy to compare India’s pollution with Burma’s – I mean Myanmar’s – clean air.
VIIRS passed over the center of India on 11 November 2015 and saw that almost the entire country was covered by smog, with the thickest smog near Delhi:
VIIRS True Color RGB composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (07:46 UTC 11 November 2015).
November 11th was the night of Diwali, the Hindu, Sikh and Jain “Festival of Lights” celebrating the “triumph of goodness over evil and knowledge over ignorance.” If you clicked that link and thought, “that doesn’t look so bad,” then note that the first few pictures were taken in England. In India, it was much smokier. I guess lighting all those fireworks in India comes with this “pro”: they can light the way through the thick smog; and this “con”: they give off smoke that adds to the thick smog. And, while the smog didn’t stop people from celebrating Diwali, it did affect people’s plans. It also caused a huge increase in the market for air purifiers.
The super-smog was not confined to November or Diwali. It’s still going on! Here’s a VIIRS image from 5 December 2015:
VIIRS True Color RGB composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (06:56 UTC 5 December 2015).
I assure you that India and Bangladesh are under there somewhere beneath all that gray muck!
As I mentioned in the previous post, we now have access to data from the new Japanese satellite, Himawari, which can be thought of as a geostationary version of VIIRS. Himawari-8 hangs out over the Equator at a longitude of 140 °E and it takes images of the full disk every 10 minutes. From its perspective, India is right on the edge of the Earth (which, in satellite meteorology is called “the limb”). This means Himawari’s line-of-sight to India has an extra long path through the atmosphere, and that makes the smog look even worse. Here’s a True Color/Geocolor loop of Himawari images of India’s “Worse-than-China” Super-Smog. You can find this and other amazing loops on our new “Himawari Loop of the Day” webpage. We also produce a lot of other Himawari imagery products, which we post here.
Shameless plugs aside, don’t forget: India’s smog is actually worse than China’s. And, unless you live in India, you probably didn’t think that was possible! (If you do live in India, get them to clean up the air!)
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India does have a serious pollution problem. Apart from the air pollution there are even other hazards which are not seriously dealt with. The waste water which is often times poisonous is left untreated into the seas by the large industries. This leads to marine life imbalance and also causes so many diseases to people living nearby to the sea.
The smog is quite a serious problem in India. The larger cities and the residents are prone to get lung diseases and other respiratory infections.
I am grateful that I live in a small yet developed city where there is no smog problem. The morning mist is clean and smells great and refreshing.
Nice and informative post. Thanks.