New Delhi: The quality of air in the city sneaks into the “severe” category again on Tuesday after floating in the “very bad” range for the past two days.
Experts don’t see relieved in the near future.
With AQI 403, the capital is standing in the third most pollution city in the next country only for Jind (AQI 428) and Manesar (AQI 410), data from the Central Polution Control Agency shows.
PM2.5 levels remain more than three times safe limits.
Experts said the city desperately needed emergency steps to curb further pollutant accumulation.
On Tuesday, meteorological conditions allow further buildup of high mixing pollutants to make it beneath the surface, a calm wind fails to ventilate the area and low temperatures to make the air higher and hold more stringent pollutants.
Weather analyst expects wind speed down further.
“The wind on Tuesday is in the northwest and the speed is not strong enough to dissolve pollutants.
The wind can turn east, but the speed will be low and not feasible for dispersion of pollutants.
The combination of other meteorological factors will limit the improvement of air quality,” said Mahesh Palawat, Vice President, Meteorology and Climate Change, Skymet.
“Wind speed on Wednesday tends to be around 4 kmps and the minimum and maximum temperature can drift around 8 and 26 degrees Celsius,” said an official of the Indian Meteorology Department.
Safar said the contribution of the stump burned into the city of PM2.5 on Tuesday fell to 8% against 10% on Monday.
The surface wind tends to remain very low for the next few days.
However, the number of agricultural fires may go down too.
“The surface wind tends to be very calm with a low ventilation index, encouraging AQI to fluctuate between the upper end of a very bad category until November 18.
The peak in the number of fires seems to have reached last week and burning stumps now shows a downhill trend,” Safar added.
Anumita Roy Chowdhury, Executive Director, Research and Advocacy, Science and Environment Center, said, “What is actually needed by the city is a long-term action plan to curb pollution throughout the year, but also need to stop further pollutant accumulation through an emergency action plan due to low ventilation Of course.
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