The Great Smog of London is often upheld as a time when pollution reached appalling levels: over a four-day period in December 1952, the capital came to a standstill, cars were abandoned, airports closed and over 4,000 people died due to respiratory or cardiovascular problems. But what might come as some surprise is that roughly the same number of people died as a result of pollution in London in 2008.
The pollutants may have changed – then it was smoke and sulphur dioxide from coal fires, now it’s principally ozone, nitrogen dioxide and fine particulate matter, mostly from vehicular emissions – but, according to a report by the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, 30,000 deaths in the UK were linked to air pollution in 2008, and life expectancy could be reduced by as much as nine years in the worst-affected areas.
With calls for the government to meet European Union standards on air pollution, the provision of accurate, real-time monitoring of air quality is crucial to understanding the factors that influence pollutant concentrations. A new study led by the University of Cambridge has begun testing instruments that could revolutionise not just pollution sensing but also relating actual exposure to medical impacts.
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Image: Pollution Credit: angeloangelo on flickr
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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Winds of change for pollution sensing
1 June 2012
A new system of pollution sensing, currently being tested at Heathrow Airport, could revolutionise monitoring air quality and predicting its health impacts.