A cold front has sent temperatures plummeting in most northeastern Chinese provinces, causing fog and haze to linger across the region. Agricultural fires in the region in the fall, following the harvest, also influenced levels of smog. Since
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), WHO's agency specialized for cancer, announced on October 16, 2013 that it has classified outdoor air pollution as carcinogenic to humans (Group 1). The world’s leading experts
In its annual report on European air quality (Air quality in Europe – 2013 report) released on October 16, 2013, The European Environment Agency (EAA) raised concern over Particulate matter (PM), which is microscopic specks of dust and soot caused by
NOAA's satellites have detected a plume of dust moving off the coast of Africa. The Saharan Air Layer has a relatively constrained area of high concentration. This animation bellow, released by NOAA Environmental Visualization Laboratory, uses a recently enhanced
Smoke lofted above the part of the atmosphere closest to the ground (the boundary layer), where topography has a significant impact on winds, is spreading farther than smoke that remains trapped near the surface. Intense fires in Canada produced
Massive wildfires in US and Canada produced smoke plumes that drifted over the Atlantic Ocean and reached Europe in late June 2013. MODIS satellite imagery shows smoke plumes hovering over Spain and the western Mediterranean Sea on June 26-27,
The thick smog from large illegal slash-and-burn land clearance practices in Sumatra has been carried by prevailing winds blowing from the southwest, and has been affecting Singapore, Malaysia and surrounding areas since June 13, 2013, pushing
Haze from forest fires on the Indonesian island of Sumatra shrouded Malaysia on June 16, 2013, causing "unhealthy" levels of pollution in six areas. The Air Pollutant Index (API) showed unhealthy levels of between 101 and 129 in several areas. In
Dust blows in the air over and around the Arabian Peninsula, covering the southern half of the Red Sea and part of the Persian Gulf, near Qatar, where a thicker dust plume blows northwest-southeast. The veil of dust also extends southward over the Gulf of Aden and
Dust from the Sahara Desert blows westward off the coast of West Africa. The dust is thickest around the border between Mauritania and Senegal, with plumes visible just north of the Senegal River and the Cap-Vert peninsula, extending west from the main sandy areas of
