Beijing's Air Was Better Overall in 2016

It may seem hard to believe given we're in the midst of an ugly stretch of some of the worst air in recent memory, but Beijing’s air in 2016 was 8 percent better than in 2015, according to statistics from the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

Of course there are many ways of quantifying bad air – you could talk PM 2.5 concentration, you could measure the total number of acceptable air days, or you could use average AQI readings: I like to use average AQI only because (a) I am lazy and this data is readily available; and (b) AQI is a catch-all rating for air quality that takes into consideration most of the important factors associated with bad air: particulate matter in both 2.5 micron and 10 micron sizes; ozone; nitrogen dioxide; carbon monoxide; and sulphur dioxide.

A brief primer for the uninitiated: the number in an AQI scale does not represent the count of anything specific; it’s a scale used as an easy-to-remember guideline percolated out of a wide array of data. We here in Beijing tend to obsess about PM 2.5; however, you could have a day with virtually no PM 2.5 floating around and still have a bad air day due to some other contaminant.

Click "Read more" for the rest of this story.

---