Poor air quality in Oslo Tuesday and Wednesday

"It is not advisable to stay along the main roads today and tomorrow, if you are part of the risk groups," says Christine Oppegaard of Oslo Municipality. She is responsible for posting reports on air quality on the municipality's websites.

On Tuesday, "moderate to high pollution levels along major roads and high levels of pollution along high-traffic roads" are reported. Concentrations will be particularly high during peak hours, but evening fire can generate increased air pollution in larger areas of the city than along the roads.

On Wednesday, a moderate level of pollution was reported along the main roads and a moderate to high level of pollution along the high-traffic roads. It is mostly road dust and exhaust gases that create high levels.

On weekends too, there was a lot of pollution in the places frequented.

Weather and air quality

This is the combination of pollution and weather conditions that determines the quality of the air. The weather is windy and cold, which means that the air quality should be lower on Tuesday and Wednesday.

• On Tuesday at 1 pm, the air quality.info service indicates that the pollution level is orange-moderate on four different measurement stations in Oslo: Hjortnes, Manglerud, Alna Center and Alnabru.
• Also in Bærum and Lørenskog, the level of pollution is orange – moderate.
• In Elverum and Hamar, the pollution level is red – so high.

Temperature, precipitation and wind are essential. For example, in Oslo, geographical location can lead to a temperature phenomenon called inversion. When it is commonly called "Oslogryta", this phenomenon aims to: a cold, heavy air sits at the bottom of the valley in the center and a warmer air rests like a lid.

Own action plan

The city council adopted a separate action plan in February to combat poor air quality. Strict measures such as free public transport on the days of the ban on diesel or emergency tariffs are introduced, differentiated tolls for the environment, road cleaning and more preventive measures to the gradual introduction of electric cars, the replacement of old wood stoves and environmental limits.

Oppegaard believes that the plan of action is important to reduce air pollution.

Bo Gleditsch, Assistant Secretary General of the Norwegian Association of Asthma and Allergy, acknowledges that it is taking a step in the right direction, but he wants more .

"We think these plans are a lot of good work, but we should obviously want you to be even more ambitious, but we think this is going in the right direction," said Gleditsch.

Better than before

"The general trend is to improve the quality of the air," said Oppegaard.

This is the replacement of the country's car park, especially with regard to heavy transport, which is the subject of many awards.

– There is a clear decrease in exhaust emissions. More environmentally friendly trucks, as well as the growing number of electric cars, are at the root of many factors. At the same time, even though emissions are declining, the weather is decisive for the concentration in the air.

A summary by the City Environment Agency for 2017 indicates that "lower concentrations of air pollution in Oslo were recorded in 2017 compared to the last ten years".

This concerns in particular the exhaust gas, but also partly the dust. Dust and wood burning are the main sources of dust.

Cleaner fleets combined with relatively favorable weather conditions are among the reasons for the drop recorded in 2017. In addition, measures that involve diesel bans on days of very poor air quality have been qualified positive.

The report for 2018 is not yet clear, but it is currently clear that 2018 could show even better results than in 2017.

"It seems that most measuring stations, in general, measure a slightly lower level of contamination in 2018 compared to 2017. Of course, so far this year, it's hard to say what is the overall situation Oppegaard said that he remained one month of the year.