Haze

Haze an atmospheric phenomenon where dust, smoke and other dry particles obscure the clarity of the sky. This term is one of the classifications of horizontal obscuration by The World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Sources for haze particles including industry, traffic and most important wildfires especially in what Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia is facing recently.

Haze appeared as brownish or bluish grey and often thought as a phenomenon of dry air. But not everyone knows that the particles will condensed in a subsequent formation to wet haze. Haze often occurs when dust and smoke particles accumulate in relatively dry air. When weather conditions block the dispersal of smoke and other pollutants, they concentrate and form a usually low-hanging shroud that impairs visibility and may become a respiratory health threat. When this turns bad especially in industrial pollution dense haze can also be known as smog.

We will look at Malaysia more closely in this topic. The haze troubled the country since end of May09. The reading of Air Pollution Index (API) in one of the state, Kuala Selangor is the highest in the country at 74 as on 30^th May due to open burning in Sumatra, Indonesia.

There are more than 30 hotspots detected throughout the country. Let’s go through with the API reading:

0 – 50 Good

51 – 100 Moderate

101 – 200 Unhealthy

201 – 300 Very Unhealthy

Above 301 Hazardous

As we can see day by day that the haze is not going off, yet it has gotten worse. What does it mean by “the level is still healthy and people should not be worried” while there are lots of people suffering from respiratory problem & accidents due to the visibility reduces. As we should tell the government that the people is very worried instead!!