I get mine from Amazon, but can’t supply a link at the moment. I like them for the same reasons Glenn does.
I was interested to hear in an interview with a local firefighter who had just returned from helping out in northern Quebec that the forests up there are quite wet—bogs three feet deep I think he said. They send ‘em in with pumps . . . So pretty hard to generalize suppose.
I bought mine from Home Depot mail order last year, but I just looked and a couple of stores in the area claim to have the 9502+ in various quantities for pickup.
“Canada and parts of the US have already seen significantly higher-than-normal wildfire burns in the last ten years than in previous decades.”
Show me on this graph from the Canadian National Forestry Database going back to 1990 where the significantly higher levels are occurring in the last ten years. I am not seeing it. Quite the opposite. Forest Fires | National Forestry Database
Yeah, like this has never happened before.
If you lived out in the Pacific Northwest you would be dealing with this every few years. We are about to get the smoke, again, now that the winds are changing.
“Recent research published in June 2023 shows that almost all of the increase in California’s burned area in recent decades has been due to anthropogenic climate change – meaning climate change caused by humans.”
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2213815120
edit to add:
Your 1780 article talks about a comparatively small region. It has no particular relevance to huge fires across all of Canada simultaneously.
Cliff Mass is a very good meteorologist. But he’s not a climate scientist even though he tries to play one on his blog. He’s not as bad about climate issues as many meteorologists are, but he does keep a pair of blinders handy. So, I tend to trust him on his smoke prediction for this week (pulling out the air purifiers, dang it), but not on anything he says about climate analysis of specific events which is well out of his specialty.
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Thanks. I’ll have to check my local HD.
It seems like folks are missing the DiY and open sources solution from Air Gradient:
I have their outdoor DIY kit and two indoor kits. I am using their online system for monitoring.
NOTE I do not have the TVOC sensors installed in my indoor monitors.
Larger burn area per fire for sure.
It’s hard to see how to compare to decades when there is only three.
See https://www.cbc.ca/news/climate/canada-wildfire-data-change-1.6854186
There are fewer fires, but an increase in area burned and number of people displaced
At the same time, the fires that break out now tend to burn more territory. Overall, the area burned annually by wildland fires has more than doubled since the 1970s, according to a recent federal report.
In Canada, roughly half of all fires are now caused by lightning. But lightning strikes are on the rise and expected to further increase with climate change
Because of climate change, the vegetation is more likely to be dry and more flammable.
“As the temperature increases, the ability of the atmosphere to suck moisture out of the fuel increases almost exponentially,” said Flannigan.
“Unless you get more rain to compensate for this drying effect from the warming, you end up with drier fuels. And this is a really critical aspect of the fire world.”
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There was a citizen-led project - Soller - which started in Germany a few years ago and was popular mainly throughout Europe. You could even build your own air quality sensor.
It seems to have stalled somewhat, but Soller’s website is still active at:
https://sollerperlaire.org/
Worth taking a look at as it has plenty of associated material
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Nice article. I spent four years at Caltech in Pasadena during the late 1960s, when the ozone-rich photochemical smog irritated my eyes and made me feel ill. I had never seen anything like it before. It was so thick that it hid the mountains north of Pasadena. They were 5000 feet tall, and when new students arrived when the smog was in, they would say “where did those come from” when rain washed the smog out for a few days. It’s been greatly improved since then, but when I looked today it was an unhealthy 159 in Pasadena. Here in Newton, MA it’s 53.
Hey, thanks Adam, for the tips and tools, and for the article.
It is sad these days, that we all have to contend with wildfires, and smoke, etc. . Ok, I am beginning to digress here.
Thanks again !!