19 August 2018

Extended Ozone High Pollution and High Heat Do Have Consequences

It's absolutely mind-boggling to your MesaZona blogger that over 87,000 people took to social media over a staged video that went viral of a confrontation between a jogger and a homeowner, but hardly anyone wants to confront or deal with hard facts in our metro Mesa environment:
Here's just another headline getting no respect: 
40 continuous days of air-pollution alerts for Maricopa County
Julian Alberto Hernandez, The Republic/azcental.com 
 Published 2:58 p.m. MT Aug. 17, 2018        
OK. Is that all right with everybody who lives here in Maricopa County?  Where the Fook is the outrage?
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A statement from the Maricopa County Air Quality Department attributed the consecutive days of air-pollution alerts to a stricter federal ozone health standard and high temperatures reacting with pollutants. . . ."
Hey! These are man-made pollutants
We can take action to reduce the dangerous unhealthy consequences of fast growth. The weak tips and resources listed below from the report don't do much.
Things will get worse not better 
Link >> https://www.azcentral.com/story/news
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" . . . Ten out of the 12 first days of August had an ozone air-quality index of 101 or higher
State and local air-quality departments and Valley Metro have issued the following tips and resources for reducing ozone pollution: 
> Drive as little as possible, carpool, use public transit or telecommute 
> Refuel your vehicle after dark 
> Avoid waiting in long drive-through lines, for example, at coffee shops, fast-food restaurants or banks – park your car and go inside 
> Visit valleymetro.org and ShareTheRide.com to plan a transit trip or find a carpool or vanpool 
> Use low-VOC (Volatile Organic Compounds) or water-based paints, stains, finishes and paint strippers – delay big painting projects 
> Make sure containers of household cleaners, garage and yard chemicals and other solvents are sealed properly to prevent vapors from evaporating into the air
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Other states have action plans to reduce the risks, here in Arizona we just watch it all happen:
For today, the area of high pressure currently centered over the Arizona/California border will slowly shift eastward and be centered directly over Arizona by this afternoon. This will result in mainly clear skies for the region along with light winds. This pattern is very conducive for ozone formation so the Ozone High Pollution Advisory (HPA) will remain in effect.
Tomorrow, the high will continue shifting east and be centered over New Mexico which will result in northwest flow in the morning changing into a southeast flow by the afternoon. This wind shift just above the surface is forecast to also import moisture back into the state. With the high moving east and increased winds expected above the surface, not anticipating ozone to rise as high on Monday as compared to Sunday so will drop the Ozone High Pollution Advisory to a Health Watch.

Link >> https://airnow.gov
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This research study is 10 years old:
Neighborhood Effects on Heat Deaths: Social and Environmental Predictors of Vulnerability in Maricopa County, Arizona
Source: https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1104625/

Blogger Note: For the purposes of a focus on hyper local results on the industrial corridor here in Mesa, see the information graphic provided in Figure 1 below.
Objectives: We estimated neighborhood effects of population characteristics and built and natural environments on deaths due to heat exposure in Maricopa County, Arizona (2000–2008).
Methods: We used 2000 U.S. Census data and remotely sensed vegetation and land surface temperature to construct indicators of neighborhood vulnerability and a geographic information system to map vulnerability and residential addresses of persons who died from heat exposure in 2,081 census block groups. Binary logistic regression and spatial analysis were used to associate deaths with neighborhoods.
Results: Neighborhood scores on three factors—they varied widely throughout the study area. 
  • socioeconomic vulnerability,
  • elderly/isolation, and
  • unvegetated area
Neighborhoods in the inner cores of the two largest cities (Phoenix and Mesa) and along a corridor in the northwestern suburbs (Glendale to Sun City) had the highest scores.
Higher scores represent higher vulnerability 
Lowest scores were in urban fringe neighborhoods to the east and west of major municipal centers. The distribution of heat deaths (Figure 1) shows that residential neighborhoods of decedents who died from heat exposure were located throughout the metropolitan area, but block groups with two or three deaths were more common in higher vulnerability areas.
Figure 1Figure 1 – HVI scores (using a method modified from Reid et al. 2009) mapped for 2,081 census block groups (CGBs) in Maricopa County, Arizona. Higher scores represent higher vulnerability. The map inset in the lower right corner indicates the urbanized area of Maricopa County (red box) shown in the larger map. The county, which also contains a much larger area of uninhabited desert and sparse settlement, is outlined in blue. The urbanized area covers all the cities and all but one of the major towns in the county. Residences of only four people who died from heat exposure were located outside the urbanized area (green circles in inset).
View larger image (PNG File)