Poor Air Quality - High AQI

[Scott 2]

How you navigating the high AQI that's hit much of the US this week? For my part, we've:

1. Paused any exercise while values are over 150. This is a new experience, so that includes inside. I don't know what the AQI at my local gym is.

2. Closed all windows and run the furnace fan continuously at 150+ aqi. We don't have a high MERV filter, since it's hard on the furnace.

3. As levels get closer to 100, I'm debating how quickly to resume outdoor activity. This morning's run is getting moved to the gym.

4. I have not invested in an air purifier. I'm hopeful this remains a rare event for us. The logistics of balancing room purifiers with whole house HVAC also looks expensive / annoying. $200-300 per room for HEPA plus charcoal unit, then around $100 annually per unit in filter costs. Another $100 if I want a separate monitor to evaluate strategy.

5. I'd wear an n95 if forced outside at aqi 200+, but don't believe it stops many of the nasties.


I haven't had any real problems. Maybe my throat is a little sensitive, but that could be psychological. Mostly I don't want to give myself asthma or some other long term long problem.

[IlliniDave]

Unlike 2021, it never got all that bad here, some haziness a few days, and occasionally a smell like an extinguished campfire some distance away. My options aside from leaving are on a continuum with two endpoints here: close up the place and stay inside, or ignore it. It never got close to bad enough I considered holing up. I think there were some pretty bad days in N Central Illinois so this year by heading north I avoided the worst of the wildfire smoke drifts (so far), the opposite of what normally happens.

[Western Red Cedar]

3. As levels get closer to 100, I'm debating how quickly to resume outdoor activity. This morning's run is getting moved to the gym.

I've been navigating this every summer for the last eight years. I'd recommend waiting until air quality levels are closer to the 50 range before exercising outdoors. I'll occasionally go for walks when it is 50-100, but end up doing most of my activity in a gym. It is difficult though, because sometimes the poor air quality in the PNW can last 4-6 weeks.

I see other people going about business as usual when the AQI is at 200+, but I personally don't think it is worth the risk. Particularly when fires are impacting homesteads, farms, or small towns - because the smoke can have some pretty toxic particulates.

I still lift weights when the AQI is really high (300, 400, even 500 ). We don't have air conditioning in our apartment, and the temperatures can get over over 100F. Getting to an air conditioned gym in that case is a blessing.

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Has this experience for folks in Canada, the midwest, and the east coast changed how you think about climate change and the future? Weeks of bad air quality in 2015 and 2016 shifted the issue from something that I understood intellectually, to something more visceral.

[bostonimproper]

We have a high MERV carbon filter, so we just keep the HVAC fan circulating. Indoor air quality hasn’t been an issue and I largely exercise at home with bodyweight exercises and dumbbells anyway. We’re not taking the baby out once AQI gets near or over 100. I wouldn’t go out at all over 150. If I had to, I would mask.

Has this experience for folks in Canada, the midwest, and the east coast changed how you think about climate change and the future? Weeks of bad air quality in 2015 and 2016 shifted the issue from something that I understood intellectually, to something more visceral.

Originally we were thinking of buying property in Michigan as a climate change hedge. The fires are making me think non-coastal Maine may be a better bet. Boston hasn’t been nearly as hard as NYC and it gets better there further up the coastline you go.

[sky]

My current, uninformed practice is to stay inside if over 150, and do not exercise above 100. I am researching air filters for inside the home.

I don't know what is recommended, this is just my naive attempt to reduce negative impacts. The nearest data I have is a sensor about 30 miles from my location, so I am not even working with good data here.

[jacob]

5. I'd wear an n95 if forced outside at aqi 200+, but don't believe it stops many of the nasties.

It does. The 95% rating is literally taken/tested at PM3 which is pretty close to PM2.5. Even a wetted bandana or cloth mask is much better than nothing.

[theanimal]

Alaska is currently experiencing the lowest burn year on record, which is a blessing after a big year last year, so zero smoke here. Mrs. Animal was pregnant last year so we decided to get an air filter. It was a good idea as most of June was over 200 AQI with some days as high as 530. We kept all the windows shut, but operated inside as normal doing HIIT exercises, calisthenics, lifting weights etc. I would still go outside to maintain our garden, but otherwise not much activity at all. I noticed that many people do not care, and operate as if there is no smoke outside at all, similar to @WRC experiences. Under 100 or so, I operated as normal, going on walks outside.

[Scott 2]

@jacob - Do you see the n95 as a free pass to play outside? I've been thinking there are still tiny particles and gases getting through, to the point where being outside is no longer health promoting. Not that I've tried exercising in an n95 either.


This is a risk I never fully appreciated. When the outside is closed due to other weather, I can adapt. Go out earlier, dress in layers, use sun gear, etc. What control do I have over Canadian fires?

I'm reading the heavy fires are expected to persist all Summer. It has me more strongly considering indoor purification strategies.

My Dad is in the "it's fine, I'll just move a little slower" camp. I haven't been able to convince him otherwise.

[sky]

I had an old HEPA air filter that we set out for sale at our last garage sale, thinking it was old and just in the way. I asked my wife today if she sold it, she said no, and found it way back behind other stuff on a shelf. I was able to order a new filter, so I cleaned it up and we now have a HEPA filter running in our sitting room.

[jacob]

@jacob - Do you see the n95 as a free pass to play outside?

Yes. Figure that wearing masks whenever one is outside will become quite normal for some people. It already is in some parts of the world where 500 AQI numbers are the daily normal. Remember, the future is already here. It's just not evenly distributed. Some will refuse/not care/prioritize and turn being mask-less into a political statement or a tribal identity. This won't be much different than obesity, smoking, ... "breathing forest fire smoke" is just a collectively acquired lifestyle disease like so many other individually acquired lifestyle diseases. Breathing this kind of pollution on a daily basis costs ~2 years of life expectancy. If you're already living in ways that costs more than that, this is probably not your number one safety concern. It is what it is. One thing is for sure. The high AQI conditions will continue until there are no more boreal forests to burn.

[zbigi]

4. I have not invested in an air purifier. I'm hopeful this remains a rare event for us. The logistics of balancing room purifiers with whole house HVAC also looks expensive / annoying. $200-300 per room for HEPA plus charcoal unit, then around $100 annually per unit in filter costs. Another $100 if I want a separate monitor to evaluate strategy.

I have just a single purfifier for an entire 38 m^2 flat. It is enough - I have a portable air quality meter, so I see that the pollution levels are roughly same across entire flat when the purifier is running. Also, it cost $150, is very dumb (no extra bells and whistles) so hopefully durable, and filters cost $50 and last a couple of years in my experience.

[Scott 2]

@zbigi - Another pro of living in a simple flat. Our "small" townhouse might have 8x the cubic footage of air volume. 1600 SQ ft, plus unfinished basement, tall ceilings, skylight, etc. Great visually, but a headache environmentally. Not designed for ecological collapse.


@Jacob - I don't like the answer, but that's a fair point. I am convinced I feel this in my throat. Trading 2 years might not be terrible, but the quality of life compromise is much less acceptable.

[jacob]

@Scott2 - It'll become one of those things that is hard to relate to those who haven't personally experienced it yet aka the "new normal". Our parents and grandparents talked about how the snow was "this high", how they played hockey on the local pond, or drank water out of the stream, while we're wondering/questioning if they're exaggerating it or making it up. We'll do the same to the next generations. They'll be questioning our insistence that the summer skies used to be clear (not hazy beyond 400m) and blue (not brown) and how we didn't have to worry about some AQI number before going outside. Detecting the change requires generational memories.

[chenda]

@Jacob - Have the recent fires impacted where you consider a safer area, in terms of prevailing winds and proximity to combustible land ?

[zbigi]

Is it possible than the climate in areas where the fires are will over time change to be more wet, along with already occuring temperature increase? Have anyone looked at the models?

[jacob]

@Jacob - Have the recent fires impacted where you consider a safer area, in terms of prevailing winds and proximity to combustible land ?

I already picked an area that's not combustible/will be defended before the fires get here. It also has a lake full of fresh water. However, as far as I know or anyone I know or know off, the idea of breathing smoke for 6-9 months of the year wasn't foreseen. If it was, mea culpa! This is why the PNW used to be the goto destination in the US whereas now, it's clear that it has counts against it. Also see future Scandinavia, maybe.

Otherwise, in terms of risk, there's a difference between having to evacuate in the face of risk of death (flooding, tornado) and living in an increasingly destructive environment (pollution, reduced life expectancy). Humans are much better at dealing with the latter going to the point of "meh" which from a certain perspective can even be considered reasonable relative to other risks.

[theanimal]

Is it possible than the climate in areas where the fires are will over time change to be more wet, along with already occuring temperature increase? Have anyone looked at the models?

This is the case for Alaska. More precipitation than normal during the summer months. Northwestern Canada is a similar climate and I would imagine the same is true there. Same with Siberia,but I am less familiar with that area. That being said, from what I remember reading, the idea is that the climate will be more prone to strong oscillations. Very wet some years and very dry others with not many in between.

[chenda]

Also see future Scandinavia, maybe.

I was thinking the same, lots of forests up their to burn. Though the prevailing westerly winds might tend to push the smoke eastwards away from north west Europe. Why the west end of cities is where the wealthy traditionally lived as the winds pushed the factory smoke to the east for the poor to deal with.

Smoke has arrived in Europe from Canada although it's high altitude and not yet causing a problem. Although in the 2019-20 bushfire season New Zealand was badly impacted by smoke from Australia.

[jacob]

After weeks and weeks of little rain, we just had 130mm of rain dropped on us over a period of 4 hours. Half the street corners are flooded 1/3 up the wheels of the parked cars and over the curb. Luckily it seems that we've living on one of the "high" corners now. (The "infrastructure bill" paid for a lot of new roads around here. It's practically up to first world standards now!) Still raining though.

A flash flood warning informed people not to drive a couple of hours ago, so of course the roads are full of people driving. The city is currently putting in barricades to redirect the "I think I can make it across this apparent lake in the street but reality objects"-crowd. I bet the fire department is loving this. In terms of "feeling this viscerally", this is a new level of flooding for the ~10 years we've lived here.

The rain did clean out the air though. Thank the gods that we already installed flood control. Those who haven't will be spending the next few days cleaning/renovating their basements. Also, the French/trench system of our garden took it rather well. No vegetables were flooded.

[Western Red Cedar]

I was thinking the same, lots of forests up their to burn. Though the prevailing westerly winds might tend to push the smoke eastwards away from north west Europe.

One aspect of wildfires that took me by surprise in the PNW over the last decade is that it isn't simply the forest fires we have to worry about, but also the scablands, prairies and farmland as well. When things dry out enough, anything can ignite quickly. Some of those fires spread to small towns and the smoke can become particularly toxic because it isn't simply burning organic material.

This probably shouldn't have been as much of a surprise if I was paying closer attention to wildfires in Australia.