Dublin tops air quality index map
RTÉ’s latest episode of The Science Squad reveals that the air quality in the heavily populated East of the country is cleaner than in the West.
The nation’s new air quality index for health — updated hourly by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — gauges from one to 10 the air quality in a given region, and whether or not it might affect the public’s health.
While Dublin gets the highest score of one on the air quality map, the west coast scores three.
Micheál O’Dwyer from the EPA admitted it was an “unusual situation” for the capital city to have the cleanest air.
“In rural Ireland there are smaller towns and there is no ban on smokey coal in those smaller towns and they tend to have worse air quality than somewhere like Dublin, which has a ban on smokey coal.”
A phenomenon called transboundary ozone — which is ozone gas blown in from other countries — is another factor is the surprisingly cleaner air in the East.
The programme explains how ozone — the blue gas formed by the action of ultra violet light on oxygen — is essential at a stratospheric level because it absorbs UV rays but when it forms at ground level it can be harmful to our health.
Ozone is not really produced naturally at ground level in Ireland because it requires a lot of sun, but at certain times of the year, it can be blown into Ireland from as far away as America.
Bizarrely, it can be reduced when it interacts with exhaust fumes, which ensures that the pollution in urban Ireland cancels out the naturally occurring ozone levels in the air in the east.
“It is unusual and it only occurs at certain times of year, but that is the case,” said air quality specialist Dr O’Dwyer.
Science Squad presenter Kathriona Devereux said the index gives advice to those suffering from certain medical conditions for each corresponding level of air quality.
Science Squad will air on RTÉ 1 on Friday at 7.30pm.
* www.epa.ie/air/quality
