Environmental protection is important for achieving the vision in which people can alleviate pollution with adverse weather.

The old saying “it all depends on the weather” is especially true when it comes to air quality. When facing bad weather conditions, we should actively implement emergency plans targeting potential circumstances to contain the pollution as much as possible.

The increasingly warm days and inactive cold air has led to static weather in many places across China since mid-February. The adverse conditions for atmospheric diffusion sharply worsened air quality in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and surrounding areas, leading to the longest and most extensive period of air pollution this year from March 9 to 14. People were psychologically unaccustomed to the pollution after enjoying more blue sky days in the winter. Some even question if the earlier improvements in air quality were solely a result of favorable weather conditions.

Indeed, desirable weather conditions contribute to more blue sky days as frequent slight north wind helped to bring fresh air. How much has weather contributed to the good air quality? Experts explored the problem through modeling analysis, finding that favorable weather contributed a drop of 5 percent in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region’s average density of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and a 7 percent drop in the Yangtze River Delta. In fact, the index has respectively fell by 39.6 percent and 34.4 percent in the region and the delta. In this context, it is fair to say that human efforts play a bigger role in reducing the density of PM2.5.

Human agency should never be underestimated. In recent years, many places implemented early warning mechanisms and emergency plans to combat air pollution, achieving obvious effects in reducing pollution peak levels and shortening pollution duration even though whole-process control of pollution is currently out of reach. Take the aforementioned March pollution as example. Experts forecasted that Beijing would have two medium-level and four heavily polluted days in which one day was very likely to upgrade to severe pollution. In fact, the city only has two days of medium-level pollution and two days of heavy pollution while air quality of the other two days remained good and slightly polluted. The real circumstances exceeded the expectations of  the forecast.

In this way, we can address the helplessness caused by absence of favorable weather. When it comes to air pollution prevention, people should keep observing the changes of weather instead of relying on it completely. When the weather is desirable, we can’t be careless about potential pollution. When it turns bad, we should actively carry out emergency plans targeting adverse conditions and reduce pollution as much as possible.

From another perspective, the difficulties in tackling air pollution lie in the varying pollution sources and the complex reactions among pollutants. We only started to seriously combat smog five years ago, so there is a long way to go before achieving our vision in which people can frequently see blue sky and alleviate pollution with adverse weather. In this process, we need to strengthen scientific research and observe weather with the help of technology. Also, we are able to formulate more effective measures after working out the relationship between meteorological elements and air pollution.

(edited by MA YUHONG)