…Chinese officials changed sensor locations, stopped measuring a major pollutant, and engaged in seemingly systematic statistical chicanery…

Olympic Organizers Give All Clear To Beijing Air, Despite Smog

By Alexis Madrigal

Wired Science

August 06, 2008

On the eve of the Olympics, the air in Beijing continues to be choked with smog and there's nothing the authorities can do about it.

On Wednesday, the IOC issued a statement by Arne Ljungqvis, the chairman of the committee's medical commission. In it, Ljungqvis says the Olympic Committee and the Beijing government are successfully managing the quality of the air in the city.

"Air quality at Games time will be adequate for Olympic sports events," the statement says.

The IOC has said it will postpone or cancel competition events if the city's air quality falls below safety standards set by the World Health Organization. To keep smog below WHO levels, the Chinese government last month instituted an ambitious effort to improve the air for the games, including extensive bans on traffic, factory shutdowns, and construction slowdowns.

The IOC's statement claims these efforts are working. But independent smog readings from the BBC and Associated Press show that they are not.

The IOC's statement cites air quality data selectively, masking the reality: Some days are clear, and some are smoggy, but the changes have more to do with the weather than the Chinese government's remediation efforts.

For example, the IOC's statement claims that on August 1, "Beijing's particulate matter measurements were lower than New York City’s on the same day."

The statement neglects to mention that the drop in Beijing's pollution levels was clearly attributable to a rainstorm that swept through the city preceding the measurement.

The IOC's statement also makes no mention of the fact that three days later, PM levels shot up to 432 micrograms per cubic meter of air. That's an astounding eight times the amount of particulate considered healthy by the World Health Organization.

The IOC has not responded to requests for comment.

Independent particulate matter readings from the BBC and Associated Press have shown that the Beijing's air is highly dependent on meterological conditions.

As outlined in an earlier Wired.com story on Rhode Island professor Kenneth Rahn's work, air quality is very difficult to control.

"I'm glad I'm not an Olympic organizer responsible for canceling these events," Rahn told Wired.com. "It is a borderline situation and unpredictable until the 11th hour."

The IOC's statement is the latest in a serious of questionable actions taking by the Chinese government and the IOC to suggest that air quality is improving in response to actions taken by the government.

Far more serious: Steven Andrews, an independent environmental consultant, made a convincing case [see article below from WSJ] earlier this year that China is cooking the environmental books.

According to Andrews, Chinese officials changed sensor locations, stopped measuring a major pollutant, and engaged in seemingly systematic statistical chicanery.

Those manipulations have led international news organizations like the AP and BBC to conduct independent tests.

The AP has put together an interactive air quality feature, which lets you compare air quality measurements in Beijing, London and New York alongside photos of the "Bird's Nest" in Beijing.

blog.wired.com

Beijing's Sky Blues

By STEVEN Q. ANDREWS

OPINION

Wall Street Journal

January 9, 2008

BEIJING -- Blue skies are here again in Beijing, just in time for the Olympics -- or are they? Last week the Chinese government rolled out new statistics claiming that air quality has dramatically improved between 1998 and last year. But a closer look at the data and changes in collection methods casts doubt on the government's sunny claims -- and raises serious questions about Beijing's commitment to a green Olympics.

The government reports daily pollution levels on the Internet, through the State Environmental Protection Agency and Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau Web sites. These agencies collect data from monitoring stations around the city and calculate an Air Pollution Index (API) indicating the potential harm to human health, with a range of 1-500. An API of 100 or less is a "blue sky" day. Annual targets for the number of "Blue Sky" days are set for Beijing and other major cities in China. On Jan. 1, the government announced "blue sky" days had improved to 246 last year, up from 100 in 1998. The news was widely reported inside and outside of China.

What wasn't reported, though, was a change in collection methods. The Beijing API is an average of data from selected monitoring stations. From 1998 to 2005, the same seven stations -- located in the city center -- were used to measure air quality. These stations monitored areas with different characteristics, including high traffic areas, plus residential, commercial and industrial districts. In 2006, however, just as international scrutiny on China's air quality was increasing, two stations monitoring traffic were dropped from the city API calculations, while three additional stations in less polluted areas were added.

Calculating the average daily Beijing API values for 2006 and 2007 using data from the original monitoring stations changes the outcome considerably; in fact, 38 of Beijing's 241 so-called "blue sky" days in 2006 would not have qualified as "blue sky" under the old methodology. The number is even less for 2007: 55 fewer days would have attained the "blue sky" standard, out of 246 reported "blue sky" days. That translates into fewer "blue sky" days as a whole than in 2002 (which had 203 reported "blue sky" days), immediately after Beijing was awarded the Olympics, and casts grave doubt on China's reported five straight years of continuous air quality improvement.

The government also substituted in less stringent measures of pollution. Beginning in June 2000, measurements of nitrogen dioxide were substituted into the air quality calculations in place of measurements of nitrogen oxides. The new standard for nitrogen dioxide was much less stringent than the old standard for nitrogen oxides, which were the worst pollutant (in terms of number of weeks exceeding air quality standards) before 2000. Since then, not a single day has exceeded the standard, thanks to the new, more easily attainable criteria. Although a lack of daily data during this time period prevents a reworking of "blue sky" days based on these measures, the reported annual average concentration of neither nitrogen dioxide nor particulates improved between 1998 and 2002. Annual average pollution levels are one of the most commonly used scientific measurements of air quality.

Even if one uses the provided pollution statistics, the numbers don't stack up. The likelihood of an API just below (API 96-100) or just above (API 101-105) the "blue sky" boundary should be approximately equal. But China's results don't correspond to that statistical rule. In 2001, Beijing had 34 days where measures for fine particulate, airborne particles of 10 micrometers or less (PM10), were near the blue sky boundary, and approximately half were reported as "blue sky" days. In 2006, 49 days had fine particulate values equivalent to an API between 96 and 105, and 98% of those were reported as "blue sky" days. Reported data for 2007 indicates a similar bias near the "blue sky" boundary.

Beyond "blue sky" reporting, the 2006 change in the air quality monitoring network also has resulted in misleading improvements in reported annual pollutant concentrations. In 2007, the average daily fine particulate concentrations were significantly lower than would have been reported if the stations in traffic areas continued to be used. This "improvement" equals nearly 10% of the average daily fine particulate level, and is far larger than the minor improvement reported in fine particulate concentrations between 2002 and 2006. For nitrogen dioxide, one of the primary components of smog, the impact of not using monitoring stations in traffic areas is likely much greater.

The health and economic impacts of air pollution in Beijing are staggering. Recent research by Peking University environmental science professors calculated the cost of particulate pollution on human health in the city for 2002 alone at 25,000 deaths and 7.2% of city GDP. In 2006, of the 84 major cities in China reported by the State Environmental Protection Agency, Beijing had the fewest number of days attaining the national air quality standard -- and in 2007, the air quality was even worse. Transparency in the public reporting of air quality is essential not only for ensuring healthful air quality during the Olympics, but also for the government to start legitimately tackling this pressing environmental crisis.

Mr. Andrews is an independent environmental consultant based in Washington, D.C. He was a 2006 Princeton in Asia fellow at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Beijing.

online.wsj.com