Pollutionwatch: May 2008

Still only late spring and the summer pollution season is well and truly upon us. Despite varied conditions across the month, on average the weather was like a good cup of tea, warm and wet – it being the hottest May since 1914 with, for southern England and Wales at least, above average rainfall. As temperature and sunlight increased so did air pollution. Moderate concentrations of ozone were recorded somewhere in the UK on every single day of the month – indicating what a significant problem this pollutant now is. One of the main reasons we have been unable to control ozone in the way that we have most other pollutants is that it is not emitted directly from cars or industrial processes, but is formed in the atmosphere from chemical reactions between other air pollutants. This means that by the time concentrations are highest, the polluted air is often far from the source of the original ‘precursor’ pollutants – giving little incentive for the local management of pollution sources. In order to help tackle the problem more effectively, last month saw the UK government launch a draft report by its Air Quality Expert Group (AQEG) examining in detail many aspects of ozone pollution.

The mini heatwave at the start of last month also brought about a particle pollution episode – with over 20 monitoring sites reporting pollution targets being broken on the 10th, mainly across northern parts of the UK with Sheffield, Scunthorpe and Middlesbrough the worst affected. Later, between the 22^nd and 28^th, whilst southern England and Wales suffered some rotten wet weather, sunshine and particle pollution returned to much northern England and Scotland.