Thinking outside the box..could the "sick building" phenomena be reproduced over a larger area by the meteorological phenomena of inversion layers- a condition where normal air mixing is reduced to a minimum and the air over a metropolitan area gets stale and polluted. Here in Portland, this is a frequent winter problem. Given the abil…
Thinking outside the box..could the "sick building" phenomena be reproduced over a larger area by the meteorological phenomena of inversion layers- a condition where normal air mixing is reduced to a minimum and the air over a metropolitan area gets stale and polluted. Here in Portland, this is a frequent winter problem. Given the ability of aerosols to remain suspended in such air, has anyone ever looked at covid infection rates in cities during such conditions and whether there are correlations with upticks in new cases following extended inversions?
I think the volume of air, even under an inversion at several hundred feet would swamp the volume of breath from humans. Also, UV light from daylight will denature viruses.
Good points. For me to worry would require the simultaneous presence of high city infection rates, extended inversion with little vertical mixing and no horizontal replacement and significant population not masking. Winter time direct uv light would have to be filtered via pollution build up or simply Supra inversion cloud cover. It would be interesting to test metropolitan inversions for just what is happening in various 10 meter layers with a given aerosol release at the surface layer and
You could get a sense of how stagnant the air was by measuring CO2. Combustion of fuel in vehicles is huge compared to people exhaling, so you should see a huge rise in CO2.
That is an interesting question. I would suspect that when you are outside, the air would mix into a much larger 3 dimensional volume, diluting the virus to almost unmeasurable levels. If it is in the daytime, I suspect that UV light would quickly eliminate the virus as well. If you are outside with many thousands of people in a small space, I suspect this would be more of a threat. One other factor, the more wind there is, the more the virus gets diluted. Perhaps it is best to go outside on bright windy days and just get skin cancer. (With the pollution where I live, I would think the smoke and smog would kill the virus faster than anything.)
Good observations! I suspect the virus aerosols would, ceteris paribus, congregate in the lower levels of the inversion but I don't know how much vertical mixing occurs in a dead air pocket.. if so, that might increase the risk of breathing them from negligible to perhaps very low. Factoring in the high case numbers of peak Delta and Omicron surges in our city, combined with an inversion event, we might have a situation where public health authorities might issue an outdoor "mask up" advisory.
Thinking outside the box..could the "sick building" phenomena be reproduced over a larger area by the meteorological phenomena of inversion layers- a condition where normal air mixing is reduced to a minimum and the air over a metropolitan area gets stale and polluted. Here in Portland, this is a frequent winter problem. Given the ability of aerosols to remain suspended in such air, has anyone ever looked at covid infection rates in cities during such conditions and whether there are correlations with upticks in new cases following extended inversions?
I think the volume of air, even under an inversion at several hundred feet would swamp the volume of breath from humans. Also, UV light from daylight will denature viruses.
Good points. For me to worry would require the simultaneous presence of high city infection rates, extended inversion with little vertical mixing and no horizontal replacement and significant population not masking. Winter time direct uv light would have to be filtered via pollution build up or simply Supra inversion cloud cover. It would be interesting to test metropolitan inversions for just what is happening in various 10 meter layers with a given aerosol release at the surface layer and
You could get a sense of how stagnant the air was by measuring CO2. Combustion of fuel in vehicles is huge compared to people exhaling, so you should see a huge rise in CO2.
That is an interesting question. I would suspect that when you are outside, the air would mix into a much larger 3 dimensional volume, diluting the virus to almost unmeasurable levels. If it is in the daytime, I suspect that UV light would quickly eliminate the virus as well. If you are outside with many thousands of people in a small space, I suspect this would be more of a threat. One other factor, the more wind there is, the more the virus gets diluted. Perhaps it is best to go outside on bright windy days and just get skin cancer. (With the pollution where I live, I would think the smoke and smog would kill the virus faster than anything.)
Good observations! I suspect the virus aerosols would, ceteris paribus, congregate in the lower levels of the inversion but I don't know how much vertical mixing occurs in a dead air pocket.. if so, that might increase the risk of breathing them from negligible to perhaps very low. Factoring in the high case numbers of peak Delta and Omicron surges in our city, combined with an inversion event, we might have a situation where public health authorities might issue an outdoor "mask up" advisory.