High Air Pollution in Shreveport Lousiana and surrounding areas.

Click on the photo to enlarge.
The past couple of days have been terrible in
Shreveport (NW Louisiana), as you can see from

the GASP data above available at NOAA's website

that shows a satellite "photograph" of the US

revealing the "soot" (aerosols, toxic hydrocarbon

ultrafine particulate matter from auto exhaust,

haze, smog, pm2.5/10 etc.) as colored areas

on the map. Blue indicates the lack of any "soot"

or air pollution.

The Texas TCEQ air quality site and the June

monthly Summary data shows that pollution

levels over 20 ug's /cubic meter of air have been

routine for today and yesterday. Click anywhere

on the state map of Texas to seen the days

summary hourly levels.

This morning and last night, I had sharp chest

pains radiating down my left arm, shortness of

breathe, my pulse rate was up over 100 beats

per minute lying on the sofa, (being 42yrs old and

fairly fit) my usual resting pulse rate is 45-52),

my airways were so restricted that I was slightly

weezing.

This morning at work I heard the usual

complaints fom coworkers

about their and their spouses similar symptoms.

As research shows (just google: heart disease, pm2.5)

it is times like this when I hear of the most deaths

from the worlds #1 killer...heart disease (see previ-

ous post about the correllation). Later in the day, the

pollution levels dropped way down and my heart rate

dropped back to 65. My oxygen saturation level in

my bloodstream as measured by a pulse oximeter,

was an unusually low 95% for me last week when the

pollution was similarly high (i tried a nap with pure

oxygen, which got it up to 99%!). This afternoon

when it cleared a bit, the level was back up to 98%

(healthy kids are commonly 99%+).

Check out the Humidity level this morning:

Where one can see that the humidity level in

many areas such as the Smoky Mountain

National Park of Tennessee is low due to the

Jet stream being overhead giving them around

a 70% humidity level. Here is their cam:

Another cam at a site with similar humidity

levels and clean air as the Smokies is Hedge-

Hog Hill, New Hampshire:

Contrary to what most people erroneously

believe, it's not humidity you see in the "bad"

examples to follow in the next post.

Every time I point out to people this greying out

"haze" in the horizon of the sky, and ask them what

do they think it is, they always say moisture or

humidity. One time my fiance' came in from work

on a miserable hazy day, and remarked "god it's so

humid out there". I went online and showed her that

the Humidity was only 39%! She couldn't believe it.

It was the heat and particles making it so

uncomfortably stuffy for her. Here's another camshot

from this morning from a clean area as seen on the

GASP image at the top of the page:

Richfield, Utah near the center of the state.

Continued tomorrow.....