Public Lab Research note


Haze over chilly Manhattan

by liz | February 18, 2015 21:01 18 Feb 21:01 | #11603 | #11603

Is this haze from heavy oils being burned, like the infamous Heating Oil #6?


5 Comments

I bet that haze acts like a nice warm blanket to keep the heat from all those oil burning furnaces down in the city!

All clouds have silver linings, even the really hazy smog clouds that are toxic and bad for everything everywhere.

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That's a great photo. Newtown Creek looks inviting. The smog looks just the way smog is supposed to look. The brown tint is from NO and NO2 which is made when cars or furnaces (or anything) burn fuel. Most of the N comes from the air, but fuels which contain lots of nitrogen can produce more NOx. I don't know which fuels have more N.

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@cfastie is right...

Its NO2 - but its being turned into Ozone!

The process is explained here: http://www.epa.vic.gov.au/air/aq4kids/smog.asp

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Cool fact: this is also why air is cleaner at night. No sunlight means no breakdown of NO2 into Ozone!

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Wow, thanks for this info everyone! How's your smog looking lately?

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