Jahangeer Ganaie
Srinagar, Nov 21: Temperature inversion is leading to formation of smog in Kashmir in the last few days, PCB scientist said on Tuesday.
Senior PCB scientist Dr Bilquees Ara said that temperature inversion, that is the deviation from typical meteorological phenomenon, leads to the formation of smog.
“The standard rule of meteorology is that air gets cooler with an increase in altitude. But temperature inversions change it. As a result, you will see weather phenomena like fog, smog, mist, and hazy horizons. Generally, it’s more common in mountainous regions or valleys or during winter when a cold night breeze from the mountains swoops to the ground,” she said.
According to her, temperature inversion usually happens during the night when the ground temperature drops because it’s no longer heated by the sun.
“As cold air close to the ground gets trapped by the layer of warm air due to which air becomes stagnant and pollution becomes trapped close to the ground due to which people are exposed to this pollution and this inversion process often leads to the formation of smog,” she said.
“Smog is the formation of smoke, fog and sulphur dioxide which is emitted by different sources,” she said, adding that sulphur dioxide is a pollutant and sulphates are detrimental to human health besides damaging plantations and creating other problems.
Dr Bilquees said photochemical smog is a type of smog produced when UV light originating from the sun interacts with the oxides of nitrogen present in the atmosphere and it also contains aldehydes, nitric acid and various poisonous substances that also harm human health .
“The government has fixed responsibilities to various departments to control Pollution level who have been working on it and there comes responsibility on the public to contribute to decreasing pollution as well,” she said.
The main sources of pollutions, she said are vehicles, open burning of biomass, plastic waste, horticulture waste, municipal solid waste, fossil fuel burning resulting in emitting out of poisonous gases in atmosphere be it like carbon monoxide, methane, sulphur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, aromatic hydrocarbons etc.
She said PCB has been given responsibility of controlling industrial pollution and that is being done as it is being ensured that industries are working under proper norms and guidelines issued by central pollution board.
“Industries are being regularly monitored and proper vigil is being kept to check emission norms besides that online monitoring systems have been installed on cement plants that shows real time data whether emission is under control or not,” she added.
Action is being taken against those who aren’t following the norms and it is ensured that every industry works as per proper norms, she said.
She added that heavy loaded units have been issued closure orders and some have been even shifted besides that zig zag technology has been set up in brick kilns to reduce emissions of pollutants and increase efficiency.
