Asian Dust │ NEX-7 & SEL24F18Z │ 24mm, ISO 400, f/2.8, 1/250, RAW
Not really a pretty picture, but something I wanted to document. This last week, Japan's been sujected to a huge Asian Dust storm, which, quite unsurprisingly, has been plastered all over the news. Of course, Japan and China have such a great history, that the Japanese news is effectively blaming China, and trying to whip up yet more criticism of pollution from China.
Interestingly enough, my current job is to measure pollution. I have either personally installed, or am responsible for, no fewer than 10 different instruments throughout Asia, which measure Black Carbon (BC). It's a rather popular topic at the moment, and it's not hard to find someone with an opinion on the matter. If you're interested, the measurement sites are here:
As a research scientist, I [remotely] collect and [locally] analyse data from these sites, almost every day. That's one of the roles of my job. Anyway, with all this action in the news, and Japanese media blaming China for pollution in Japan, I wonder where their Japanese Toyota or Nissan car was made. China? How about their shiny MacBook Pro? Made in China? Their iPhone? Assembled in China? Hmm..
Anyway, this is the oojamaflip which measures BC. It's called COSMOS, which is quite cute. COSMOS stands for Continuous Soot Monitoring System, which is less cute.
If you want to know more about it, or see some data, I hope to be writing a paper on the subject very soon. No pretty pictures though :(