Chengdu Air Quality Worse than Beijing in August

[Stevec]

Last month (August 2014), I recorded the Air Quality Index (AQI) scores for Chengdu and Beijing, once per day for 31 days. During that period, Chengdu air was more polluted than Beijing’s! (SEE SUMMARY BELOW). With the AQI score LOWER SCORE = CLEANER AIR. Here are August’s AQI results (summary)!
CHENGDU VS BEIJING August 2014 Air Quality Index (AQI) Scores Summary – (scores from aqicn.org):
–>AVERAGE DAILY AQI SCORE FOR 22 days: Chengdu 136 Beijing 124
(LOWER SCORE = CLEANER AIR)

AQI Score (all 31 days combined): Chengdu 4229 Beijing 3831
(LOWER SCORE = CLEANER AIR)
# of Hazardous days: Chengdu 0 Beijing 0
# of Very Unhealthy days: Chengdu 0 Beijing 2
—># OF UNHEALTHY DAYS: Chengdu 16 Beijing 11
# of Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups days: Chengdu 7 Beijing 6
# of Moderate days: Chengdu 2 Beijing 7
# of Good days: Chengdu 0 Beijing 1

LIMITATIONS OF THESE RESULTS:
1) This is just a data snapshot. I recorded the AQI scores once a day for one point in time (often 2pm), but in reality air pollution levels (and AQI scores) change throughout the day. The AQI scores are updated hourly on aqicn.org. Unfortunately, the average AQI score based on the entire 24 hour period in a day is not available.
2) For month 1 (June) I only recorded 22 days out of 30. For month 2 (July) I will try to include every day of the month. Stay tuned for July’s results!

FYI I obtained the AQI scores from the website aqicn.org, which is a foreign (non-Chinese) operated site. (I am not affiliated with the website, but am glad it’s there!). The people who created the website have installed air pollution monitoring devices in cities across China and use the data derived from them to calculate the AQI scores. As mentioned above, the AQI score is considered to be a good measure of air pollution, and the important thing to know is that LOWER SCORE = CLEANER AIR. Feel free to check out the site to read more about it.

-Steve

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