On this day, i was awakened by this smelly burnt smell.. and i knew this going to be another day with HAZE. I was correct and shocked when I saw that the blurry image of the buildings in KL as shown in the picture above.
Haze is traditionally an atmospheric phenomenon where dust, smoke and other dry particles obscure the clarity of the sky. The WMO manual of codes includes a classification of horizontal obscuration into categories of fog, ice fog, steam fog, mist, haze, smoke, volcanic ash, dust, sand and snow. [1] Sources for haze particles include farming (ploughing in dry weather), traffic, industry, and wildfires.
Seen from afar (e.g. approaching airplane) and depending upon the direction of view with respect to the sun, haze may appear brownish or bluish, while mist tends to be bluish-grey. Whereas haze often is thought of as a phenomenon of dry air, mist formation is a phenomenon of humid air. However, haze particles may act as condensation nuclei for the subsequent formation of mist droplets; such forms of haze are known as "wet haze."
In the United States and elsewhere, the term "haze" in meteorological literature generally is used to denote visibility-reducing aerosols of the wet type. Such aerosols commonly arise from complex chemical reactions that occur as sulfur dioxide gases emitted during combustion are converted into small droplets of sulfuric acid. The reactions are enhanced in the presence of sunlight, high relative humidity, and stagnant air flow. A small component of wet haze aerosols appear to be derived from compounds released by trees, such as terpenes. For all these reasons, wet haze tends to be primarily a warm-season phenomenon. Large areas of haze covering many thousands of kilometers may be produced under favorable conditions each summer.
Haze is also use to describe turbidity in clear glass or plastic as a percent value, or turbidity in beer or wine.
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. Industrial pollution can result in dense haze, which is known as smog.
Since 1991, haze has been a particularly acute problem in Southeast Asia. In response the ASEAN countries agreed on a Regional Haze Action Plan (1997) and later signed the Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution (2002). Under the agreement the ASEAN secretariat hosts a co-ordination and support unit.[2]
aze causes issues in the area of terrestrial photography, where the penetration of large amounts of dense atmosphere may be necessary to image distant subjects. This results in the visual effect of a loss of contrast in the subject, due to the effect of light scattering through the haze particles. For these reasons, sunrise and sunset colors appear subdued on hazy days, and stars may be obscured at night. In some cases, attenuation by haze is so great that, toward sunset, the sun disappears altogether before reaching the horizon (see, for example, Figure 1 in http://www.spc.noaa.gov/publications/corfidi/haze.html). Haze can be defined as an aerial form of the Tyndall effect therefore unlike other atmospheric effects such as cloud and fog, haze is spectrally selective: shorter (blue) wavelengths are scattered more, and longer (red/infrared) wavelengths are scattered less. For this reason many super-telephoto lenses often incorporate yellow filters or coatings to enhance image contrast.
Infrared (IR) imaging may also be used to penetrate haze over long distances, with a combination of IR-pass optical filters (such as the Wratten 89B) and IR-sensitive detector.
With production of plastic films haze has technical significance as the percentage of light that is deflected more than 2.5° from the incoming light direction.[3]
(WIkipedia)
Here are some facts, adapted from the star
Settle this burning issue of haze, now
Something’s in the air these days and it’s not really very nice – in fact it’s downright dangerous and I am not talking about the swine flu. It is the particulates from burning taking place across the Straits of Malacca in Sumatra and in the Riau archipelago carried into Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand by the winds.
It irritates the throat, waters the eyes, increases the risk to asthma patients, multiplies respiratory ailments, raises the air pollution index to unhealthy levels, discourages tourism, puts a pall of gloom in the air and probably has resulted in more direct and indirect deaths than the total number of people killed throughout the world from the A (H1N1) or swine flu virus.
In 1997/98, a particularly bad period when visibility was so low that one could not see the building sitting across the road in Kuala Lumpur, total damage to the environment, health, tourism and other activities was estimated at a staggering US$9bil (RM32bil), most of it to Indonesia itself.
Since that year, the haze has recurred yearly in our part of the world. In addition to fires in Sumatra and Riau, there are others in Kalimantan. Mostly, the fires are due to clearing of land for agriculture.
Using fires to clear land is illegal in Indonesia, but many plantations and farmers routinely use this method for agriculture because it is the cheapest way. The perpetrators don’t care for the health, economic and environmental damage they cause.
They are in effect aided by Indonesian authorities who routinely turn a blind eye to this practice and allow it to go on during the dry season. This burning has recurred every year since 1997 and sometimes has become extremely serious, such as in 2006.
Every year, the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore are blanketed in smoke from burning in Sumatra while parts of Sarawak and Brunei are affected by similar burning in the Indonesian part of Borneo.
Every year, when we are supposed to be enjoying blue skies and sunshine, and the sometimes unwelcome hot weather, we get instead gloomy skies, haze and smoke with unseasonably, intense thunderstorms from moisture in the air.
For weeks and months on end from June to September, we have to endure this until the advent of rains from October quells the fires and we move into the rainy season.
The thing that grates is that this whole episode repeated year in and year out is so easily preventable and this will benefit not only countries affected by the Indonesian burning but is most beneficial to Indonesia itself.
Following the major haze in 1997/98, Asean countries signed an agreement called the Asean Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution in 2002. That agreement provides a comprehensive basis for the control of haze in the region, imposing obligations on the countries to take appropriate measures where the haze could affect other countries.
However, to date, Indonesia, although a signatory, has not ratified the agreement, which means that the provisions of the agreement are not binding yet.
Thus, the main perpetrator of cross-border pollution is not clearly held to account.
Indonesia’s stance previously has been that it tries to stop the fires but because of the dry weather and the nature of the fires, it is often very difficult to put out once the fires start. The truth is probably somewhere in between, and even by accounts in the Indonesian press itself, fires are most often started by farmers and plantations deliberately and then subsequently rage out of control.
While the short-term costs are lower when debris from land clearing is burnt, the long-term damage to the environment, health, tourism and other economic activities are much, much bigger than the costs.
While unremitting pressure should be put on Indonesia by all the other Asean countries to ratify the agreement, there should be a plan to help Indonesia as well.
Asean countries should seriously consider the setting up of a fund not just to put out fires after they start but to prevent it altogether. That means to stop the people whether farmers or plantations from starting the fires to burn the waste in the first place.
There are measures which can be employed to get rid of organic waste in an environmentally friendly manner. They can for instance be broken up into small pieces and spread on the ground in plantations and farms, providing a source of nutrients as they rot.
A properly administered system of incentives, subsidies and severe penalties will quickly shift plantations and farmers into adopting more environment-friendly measures as they directly gain or lose according to the methods they use.
But for all this to take place, Indonesia must be willing to be part of the process. Asean countries must do their part to pull Jakarta into the circle by applying pressure and by standing ready to provide technical and financial help as and when required.
Admittedly it’s a delicate act which requires not just diplomacy, tact and negotiation but toughness, too. We cannot be pussyfooting around this issue forever as we have not had a haze-free dry season for more than a decade now.
We must extinguish this smouldering, burning issue once and for all.
Managing editor P Gunasegaram says take care of the environment and it will take care of us, too.
Until today the hazes in KL continues, I'm wondering..Does people especially the Authorized personnel have the concern even to solve this problem?? I guess not, they won't give a damn to it also. All they know is just fight for wealth, power, status and just do whatever things in order to get back what they wanted.I really hope that we do our part in making sure that this earth is a safe place for us to have a better future.
No more burning of forest. No more deforestation. No more pollution. Give those lovely animals and creatures a chance to live happily on earth. They have the rights as much as we do.
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