As As smoke from wildfires chokes the West Coast, social media has been flooded with crowdsourced maps providing near-real time updates on just how horrendous the air really is. Much of the data are from relatively inexpensive sensors from a company called PurpleAir. They’ve only been available for the past few years, but they’re already changing everything from government maps of air quality to how communities are watching out for each other — and keeping track of the air they breathe. Low-cost air quality sensors that measure particle pollution — including dust, soot, and smoke — have only become available to most non-scientists in the past decade or so, experts tell The Verge . As people push back against polluters in their backyards and cope with fire seasons that have grown increasingly dangerous as a result of climate change, PurpleAir sensors and others like them have become more popular, and more powerful. “The power is not in one individual monitoring th...
Air pollution threatens the lives of millions each year. It is now considered to be the largest threat to human health globally. Exposure to air pollution exacerbates a wide range of diseases, including asthma, different types of cancers, heart disease, acute respiratory infections, and pulmonary illnesses. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 91% of the world’s population breathe air that exceeds WHO guideline limits, demonstrating the urgent need to reduce air pollution to limit the vast number of unnecessary deaths (4.2 million annually) caused by exposure to high levels of pollutants. Newly developing sensor technology could make air pollution monitoring more accessible and may be vital in accelerating much-needed reductions in air pollution. Below, we discuss new developments for detecting air pollution in cities with the use of sensors. Ai Quality Sensor is Key Strategy Reduce Air Pollution Collecting and sharing air pollution levels in real-time offers expert...