User avatar
applestar
Mod
Posts: 30515
Joined: Thu May 01, 2008 7:21 pm
Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

Why is air quality red in this area of Yukon ?

So, it’s really really hot here today, and I was checking the local air quality map. Then just vaguely wondering how it compared to the rest of the country, I zoomed out and aimlessly started scrolling around to the more critical areas... and stumbled across a HUGE area in the red. ...I thought it must be an active volcano, except it wasn’t anywhere I thought a volcano was supposed to be...

The weather map identified the area a Yukon in Canada and showed an unique Y-shaped body of water. So I switched to the global map app and dropped a pin in the approximate area, then switched to in satellite mode and was aghast (try it). The Y shape was identified as Mayo Lake.

Image


In trying to find out more about the area, I came across this website. I’m wondering even if it’s not this particular outfit, it must be the general activity in the area generating the worst air quality in the entire continent? Or does that “Plutonic Belt” mean there are seismic activities and vented gasses there?
Mayo Lake Minerals is a Yukon based mineral exploration/development company
https://www.mayolakeminerals.com/
Image
...I noticed a smaller but red zone over Rapid City and searched for more info — this page provided some insightful descriptions and details:
Air Quality General Information | Rapid City South Dakota
https://www.rcgov.org/departments/commu ... n-362.html

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13962
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

It sounds like the dust is mostly man made as a result of intensive mining operations.

Kilauea and the Pu'u 'O'o' vent in particular had been in almost continuous eruption since 1983. In 2018 when the floor of the Pu'u O'o vent collapsed, lava was redirected and appeared in a new rift zone that destroyed more than 700 homes in Leilani Estates. Now the area is covered in about 20 feet of new lava. Most of the lava moves through the lava tubes underground, air quality is affected only when the lava breaks through to the surface. Where the lava enters the sea, there is a huge steam cloud but people are not supposed get that close to it since the ground is unstable. There are idiots who try though. Most of the time the trades push off the dust, ash, and sulfur and air quality remains good. We only get vog and hazy conditions on Oahu when the winds come from Kona. It does irritate my eyes, but the muggy conditions are more oppressive than vog.

https://phys.org/news/2018-10-air-quali ... sland.html

User avatar
digitS'
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 3925
Joined: Sun Sep 26, 2010 1:10 pm
Location: ID/WA! border

"As of July 2, there have been 50 wildfires throughout the territory."



"Wildfire smoke leads to air quality advisory across the Yukon"

Steve

User avatar
applestar
Mod
Posts: 30515
Joined: Thu May 01, 2008 7:21 pm
Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

Ah ha! Wow wildfire is not something that immediately comes to mind, but I know you have been troubled by them many times. Thanks for the info and link @digit’S

But the massive extent of the red zone is truly frightening. There are smaller scale red areas in the US that as you can see, don’t even show up at the full N. American continent zoom. Rapid City being one example — really puts the relative size of that blotch in perspective.

I was thinking along the same lines as imafan26 — that if must be the dust from the mining operations and any other on-site processing they might be doing — and it’s not impossible that the area air quality is already heavily in the danger zone and the wildfires are adding to the existing issues.

I mean I zoomed in on Hawai’I because I remembered imafan26 saying that the volcano is actively smoldering, and it doesn’t even signify — and that red area would swallow all of the islands and some.

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13962
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

I checked the air quality in Kona is a 6 which is in the green "good" zone. Puna is 13 and also good. Almost anything is bigger than all of the main islands of Hawaii. Even if you count all the islets and atolls in the Hawaiian chain which stretches from seamount Loihi( it will be a few thousand years before it breaks to the surface), to Kure Atoll, it probably would not fit in that red zone. The Hawaiian Islands have a total land area of 6,423.4 square miles (16,636.5 km2)

User avatar
applestar
Mod
Posts: 30515
Joined: Thu May 01, 2008 7:21 pm
Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

Maybe not.... but looks pretty close :shock: (of course there might be the flattened globe/2D distortion in effect)
Attachments
4A9F9AC3-D2D8-4D9F-8E36-7E33B69F0EEB.jpeg

User avatar
applestar
Mod
Posts: 30515
Joined: Thu May 01, 2008 7:21 pm
Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

This is from a week ago, but might be the reason for the St. George Island in Florida —
https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/apalachi ... EPRD640045

Apalachicola National Forest prescribed burning today in Leon County

TALLAHASSEE, Fla., June 25, 2019 – The U.S. Forest Service is prescribed burning in the Apalachicola National Forest today.

The 359-acre burn will be conducted in Leon County, south of Capital Circle SE between Woodville Highway and Crawfordville Road. The burn will improve wildlife habitat, eliminate vegetation build up and reduce the threat of wildfires.
[...]
This is one of many prescribed burns the Apalachicola National Forest is doing during the 2019 prescribed burning season. Today’s burn is in burn unit 220 (see the Apalachicola’s planned burn map): https://go.usa.gov/xEsP8.
Link to Weatherbug air quality map
:arrow: https://www.weatherbug.com/air-quality/

Taiji
Greener Thumb
Posts: 921
Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2012 3:19 am
Location: Gardening in western U.P. of MI. 46+ N. lat. elev 1540. zone 3; state bird: mosquito

The YT has a surprisingly arid climate. Most people think of it as ice and snow and rain. I did until I made several trips there. In fact, what they call the "smallest desert in the world" is located near Carcross.

User avatar
digitS'
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 3925
Joined: Sun Sep 26, 2010 1:10 pm
Location: ID/WA! border

"Record heat with smokey conditions to continue across portions of
southern Alaska through Tuesday.

A very strong ridge of high pressure over Alaska slowly weakens and shifts
northwest from Sunday through Tuesday. A dry northerly flow near and to
its east is expected to foster a continuation of dry conditions and record
high temperatures, with all-time records within reach, for southern Alaska
into Monday as temperatures soar into the 80s and 90s. Wildfires across
southern portions of the state combined with the strong high and very warm
temperatures are expected to lead to periods of low air quality as well."

Weather Prediction Center, NOAA

User avatar
applestar
Mod
Posts: 30515
Joined: Thu May 01, 2008 7:21 pm
Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

Thanks digitS’ — this is all very interesting! Doesn’t “Alaska” and “Yukon Territory” evoke visions of pristine purity?

I was ranging around in the air quality map yesterday, just to see what’s what. For some reason, Alaska air quality doesn’t show up on this particular map, but the edge of the red was cut off at the border. Whole mess of red and even dark maroon-red in western China’ish region — is that a desert area? Big blotche’s of red in other unexpected places.... then none where I would have expected some bad even though the gradient shading for air quality in good to fair range are displayed....

Overall, it does seem like natural causes create greater blanket area of bad air quality, or it’s just all relative? But if the air quality in the urban clusters and industrial areas are good enough to breathe, then what does that mean in those red and maroon-red areas and for local resident air breathers?

(I’m currently reading old sci-fi anthologies by James White — Sector General Galactic Hospital series — and almost wrote DBDG warm-blooded oxygen breathers.....)

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13962
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

Deserts in Canada are more like tundras or steppes, treeless and more grassy. It is hard to imagine a northern climate in the 90's but Alaska has been having that kind of temperatures recently.

That is warmer in the Northern latitudes than it gets it is in the tropics. It seems hotter here because of the mugginess and humidity, but it is humidity that modifies the temperature.

I found the following on wikipedia that might contribute to the hotspot as well. Global warming melting the permafrost layers releasing greenhouse gasses carbon and methane and dead grasses increasing the risk of wildfires.

"Relationship to global warming
A severe threat to tundra is global warming, which causes permafrost to melt. The melting of the permafrost in a given area on human time scales (decades or centuries) could radically change which species can survive there.[7]

Another concern is that about one third of the world's soil-bound carbon is in taiga and tundra areas. When the permafrost melts, it releases carbon in the form of carbon dioxide and methane,[8] both of which are greenhouse gases. The effect has been observed in Alaska. In the 1970s the tundra was a carbon sink, but today, it is a carbon source.[9] Methane is produced when vegetation decays in lakes and wetlands.[10]

The amount of greenhouse gases which will be released under projected scenarios for global warming have not been reliably quantified by scientific studies, although a few studies were reported to be underway in 2011. It is uncertain whether the impact of increased greenhouse gases from this source will be minimal or massive.[10]

In locations where dead vegetation and peat has accumulated, there is a risk of wildfire, such as the 1,039 km2 (401 sq mi) of tundra which burned in 2007 on the north slope of the Brooks Range in Alaska.[10] Such events may both result from and contribute to global warming.[11]"

https://www.dw.com/en/saving-canadas-on ... a-19470246



Return to “Non-Gardening Related Hoo-ha and Foo”