Yesterday we woke to a strange and unpleasant smell hanging
in the air – like used motoroil poured on a dusty road in the hot sun – and we
looked out to see a purplish yellow haze lurking low over the Gulf. It’s reminiscent of the sort of haze that we
remember hung over big UK cities on still and hot summer days. Vehicle exhaust fumes mainly.
Idra disappeared behind the dirty smudge. The only thing out there was ships but since
the implementation of IMO 2020 ships are supposed to be burning only low
sulphur (clean) fuel or have installed expensive exhaust scrubbing technology
to filter out all these climate warming emissions. (Told you I was learned far more about
maritime matters with F working from home than any self-respecting cat needs to (see 28 March blog entry))
It has been warm and still here for a couple of days, and
although the smell has receded the coloured cloud persists. The relaxing of lockdown rules must mean that
many many cars have returned to roads (they have certainly returned to our
Akti), and maybe the cloud isn’t really ‘out there’ but over all of us and we
can only perceive it when there are enough miles of it to look though.
High pressure again might also be holding it down, and hills
surround the Gulf so where can it escape to?
A heat wave is forecast. I hope F
has put the gel pads in the fridge.
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| Eschscholzias love the heat |
We were warned that there would be a lot of dust in the air and it would be trapped low. At the moment there is a thick haze. Same over your side of the gulf I imagine. My eyes get really itchy in this dirty atmosphere. At least there is a slight breeze but not enough to blow it all away
ReplyDeleteYou are probably getting all our traffic fumes as well; it has that sort of look about it. You have completely disappeared in the haze the last 2 days. No one is wearing a mask here but masks may have a valid alternative use in this murk (the reason lots of people wear them in Chinese cities).
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