I arrived in India yesterday, and will be here for a few weeks working on an MIT research project. I’m in New Delhi at the moment, and am sad to say the pollution here appears to be pretty bad. There’s not a cloud in the sky, but it’s still not blue. Here’s a shot from my window:
I decided to check to forecast to see how this sort of thing is accounted for, and was a bit shocked by the accuracy of weather.com. Today’s forecast – 68 degrees with Smoke:
On the upside, the sunrise was spectacular through the haze.
I’m slightly optimistic that isn’t isn’t typical, as the 5-day forecast doesn’t show any smoke on the horizon. And when I checked the weather a few times before I left, I never saw anything unusual.
And I did have a chance to take a look around the city yesterday afternoon, and saw a fair amount of blue along with some beautiful buildings and temples.
James Fallows has blogged extensively about the smog in China, and how the government is rarely transparent when reporting on it, except in the most extreme cases. It looks like it can be worse there. Here’s one example.