1 week Ago By Soumya Pillai
New Delhi: Delhi woke up to yet another hazy morning on Monday, and under a thick blanket of smog – a toxic blend of smoke and fog – as cold air on the onset of winter trapped emission and smoke from crop residue burning in neighbouring states. Data from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) showed the air quality index (AQI) at 6 a.m.
on Monday was 480, which reached 487 at 11 a.m. The AQI in many parts of the national capital, including Najafgarh, Ashok Vihar, Anand Vihar, Sector 8, Punjabi Bagh and Wazirpur, maxed out at 500.
In Gurugram, the AQI at 11 am was 458, while the pollution level touched 338 in Faridabad and 403 in Noida. The Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) data revealed how pollution levels consistently peaked through the weekend. In Punjabi Bagh, a residential locality in west Delhi, the levels of ultrafine particulate matter (PM 2.
5) climbed from 374ug/m3 at 3 pm on Sunday to 995ug/m3 at 11 am Monday. In Dwarka, this spike was from 409ug/m3 to 1042ug/m3 in the same period. The 4 pm bulletin on Sunday recorded an AQI of 441, categorised as ‘severe’ on the CPCB scale.
Calm winds, a drop in temperatures, and high emissions from stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana all added to this toxic smog. Mahesh Palawat, vice-president (meteorology and climate change) at Skymet Weather — a private weather forecasting agency — said wind speeds over Delhi-NCR have been too weak to disperse pollutants. “Over the last few days, there has practically been no wind over Delhi.
By the second half of Sunday, the wind speed had improved slightly, but it was still not enough to sweep away the pollution,” Palawat said. He added that apart from low wind speed, the lowered temperatures and the lack of rain also caused pollutants to accumulate. The temperature fall has caused “vertical trapping” of pollutants, Palawat said.
In summer, the warmer, lighter air rises, taking pollutants with it and dispersing them in the atmosphere. But as temperatures fall, the warmer air is replaced by colder, more dense air, which traps pollutants closer to the surface, causing accumulation. Delhi has experienced higher-than-normal temperatures in October and November this year.
According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), parts of Delhi-NCR, Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, recorded the first spell of dense fog only last week. Temperatures have also now started falling in the region, with the minimum in Delhi’s representative station Safdarjung clocking 16.2 degrees celsius on Monday, down from nearly 22 degrees recorded in early November.
“When the temperatures were high, and the winds were blowing, the pollution was under control. Now that the weather has become non-conducive, we are seeing the first pollution peak in the region,” Palawat said. Navdeep Dahiya, a private weather forecaster, said this drastic deterioration in pollution levels was also caused by a “trapping” of smoke from the stubble fires from the neighbouring agrarian states of Punjab and Haryana.
He said that smog has got landlocked over Delhi-NCR and central Haryana. Strong winds from the northwest kept Punjab clear, but the remnants of fog and smoke got stuck in the national capital region (NCR), resulting in a “gas chamber effect”, he said. In a post on ‘X’ Sunday night, Dahiya said the situation needed to be somehow dealt with tonight, and hoped things would get better Monday afternoon with some wind flow.
He added the overall AQI might go back to the “very poor” category–with a better situation in the afternoon compared to today–for the next two to four days. “Nights will be marginally better only,” Dahiya posted. Also read: Farmers outwitting satellite detection? Images show stubble burning peak post-afternoon hours The Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology’s Decision Support System—a central pollution monitoring and forecasting body—revealed at least 17 percent of Delhi’s pollution came from its own vehicular emissions on Monday.
This was followed by pollutants coming in from Sonipat (5.9 percent), Jhajjar (5.2 percent), and from Delhi’s residential localities (4.
1 percent). Till Saturday, a majority of Delhi’s pollution load was from stubble fires (25.10 percent), followed by vehicular emission (12.
58 percent), and finally contamination from neighbouring states. The Commission for Air Quality Management in the National Capital Region and adjoining areas (CAQM) on Sunday took stock of the rising pollution levels in Delhi, and invoked stage 4 for the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) from 8 a.m.
on 18 November. Along with existing restrictions, the new eight-point agenda will include a ban on the entry of trucks to Delhi—except those carrying essential commodities—this will also include all light commercial diesel vehicles below BS-6 categorisation. The order also banned all construction and demolition activities in Delhi and NCR, including linear public projects like highways, roads, flyovers etc.
The Commission has also advised schools to move to online mode, and offices to allow work from home option. (Edited by Tikli Basu) Also read: Govt waives environmental permits for low-polluting industries in push for ease of doing business var ytflag = 0;var myListener = function() {document.removeEventListener('mousemove', myListener, false);lazyloadmyframes();};document.
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