Air quality alert apps see spike in usage as Canada wildfires burns

While air quality in North America and Europe improved during the last decade due to stricter environmental regulations, extreme weather and record wildfires have raised latest air pollution concerns.

This week, smoke from wildfires in Quebec and Ontario drifted across the Northeast U.S., with an orange haze descending over Latest York City and unhealthy air quality levels persisting within the region.

Consequently, more individuals are turning to mobile apps to know when air quality is improving or worsening, wherever they could be.

As of Thursday, the Airnow mobile app ranked because the sixth most downloaded free app on the App Store for iPhone, outranking TikTok, WhatsApp and Instagram.

Use of those apps and latest installs are sometimes driven by regional events.

Generally, air quality tracking apps use a mixture of knowledge from government-operated satellites, weather, fire and ambient air quality stations, in addition to sensors and systems run by private sector entities to trace smoke and pollution levels. Some apps run on data crowdsourced from relatively reasonably priced air quality sensors sold by corporations comparable to PurpleAir and IQAir.

• AirNow, created by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, allows users to look for air quality levels by ZIP code, or view Fire and SmokeMaps of the entire country with some data available on fires and smoke that will impact the U.S. from Mexico and Canada. Like most air pollution trackers, it uses a color-coded visual system to point whether air pollution levels are good to hazardous, or whether there just isn’t enough data to issue a rating.

• AirNow also has online maps to present the general public actionable details about air pollution at any U.S. ZIP. These include a Fire and Smoke Map, which provides information on fire locations, smoke plumes and air quality, and the AirNow Interactive Map shows ozone and particulate matter from air quality monitors across the country. While particulate matter (also called “PM 2.5” or “particle pollution”) is the important thing pollutant in smoke, ozone also might be elevated during wildfires.

• AirCare, made by developers in northern Macedonia, is obtainable for iOS and Android mobile devices, including iPhones, iPads, Apple Watch and Huawei smartphones, amongst many others. Tiers include a free, ad-supported version and a professional version that costs $39.99 a 12 months. The app includes kid-friendly air pollution information, charts and maps that show pollutant levels derived from government-run sensors and stations, alongside volunteers’ PurpleAir and other sensors throughout the U.S., Europe and Australia. In some major metro areas, the app also tracks ultraviolet and pollen levels.

• AirVisual, made by the Swiss air quality company IQAir, tracks air pollution in greater than 10,000 cities and 80 countries drawing on data from tens of 1000’s of sensors, some positioned at U.S. embassies overseas. The corporate’s free mobile apps are also ad-free and available for iOS and Android devices. Besides real-time maps that show levels of six various kinds of major pollutants, IQAir’s AirVisual and mobile website provide seven-day air pollution and weather forecasts, together with air pollution-related news and health information. The apps can pair with the corporate’s own sensors, including the portable AirVisual Pro sold for $299.

The scientists wrote in an e-mail to CNBC in 2021 that: “Americans living in poor air quality areas are likely to be people of color or low-income communities. We’re finally beginning to pay more attention to those issues, which hopefully will lead to alter. The air pollution composition can be changing.”

In a single example, greenhouse gas emissions from transportation declined in Latest York City from 2014 to 2017, while industrial cooking emissions rose.

With increased wildfires, the scientists wrote, “The sources and composition of the air pollution mixture that we’re experiencing could otherwise impact our health, so we’d like to raised understand source-specific effects, especially for these newly distinguished sources.”

While outdoor air quality is significant, society doesn’t talk or do enough about indoor air quality, said Richard Corsi, University of California, Davis’ incoming dean of the school of engineering, currently a professor and dean at Portland State University.

Using pre-pandemic numbers, Corsi explained that the common American would spend almost 70 out of 79 years of their life domiciled within buildings. “Because we spend a lot time indoors, even our exposure to pollutants of outside origin is dominated by what we breathe there, especially in our homes,” he said.

Pollutants of outside origin, which come from the likes of internal combustion engine vehicles, photochemical smog, refineries and wildfires, can get into homes and buildings when doors and windows are opened, when heat and air con systems are used, or through other cracks within the constructing envelope.

Consumer apps and devices today don’t give users an absolute, precise measurement all the way down to micrograms per cubic meter of a given pollutant, Corsi noted. But they’re very useful for spotting trends and relative changes in air quality.

As well as, sensors arrange indoors can work well to examine whether protective measures are working to enhance the air within a house, school or other constructing.

Especially during wildfire season, Corsi said, another easy actions that may protect or improve air quality indoors include: wet-mopping floors and wiping surfaces so pollutants don’t accumulate, using HEPA or high-efficiency particulate air filters, and increasing the MERV or minimum efficiency reporting value of filters in central air systems in a house.