Air Quality Forecast in South America

The Air Quality forecast for South America is now available on the World Air Quality Index project, in parnership with the Brazilian Centro de Previsão do Tempo e Estudos Climáticos (CPTEC). The forecast can be accessed freely accessed from cptec.inpe.br as well as forecast/ south-america/.

The CPTEC team has done an excellent work at providing a simple and detailled explanation on the underlying concepts used by their forecast model, called BRAMS (for Brazilian developments on the Regional Atmospheric Modelling System). The picture below (from the CPTEC) is giving an insight on the workflow for their model (source -> transport -> deposition).

One of the minor issue with the system used by the CPTEC is the input sources which are only based on modelisation of biomass burning and anthropogenic (human made) pollution. To be even more complete, it would further benefit from taking input data from global sources: for instance from the sahara dust (which indeed crosses the antlantic). So, just like the accuracy study we did not the Asian Air Quality forecast from Sprintars, you can find below the forecast accurary analysis for BRAMS for 5 cities in South America.

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Forecast advance:

AQI	Air Pollution Level	Health Implications	Cautionary Statement (for PM2.5)
0 - 50	Good	Air quality is considered satisfactory, and air pollution poses little or no risk	None
51 -100	Moderate	Air quality is acceptable; however, for some pollutants there may be a moderate health concern for a very small number of people who are unusually sensitive to air pollution.	Active children and adults, and people with respiratory disease, such as asthma, should limit prolonged outdoor exertion.
101-150	Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups	Members of sensitive groups may experience health effects. The general public is not likely to be affected.	Active children and adults, and people with respiratory disease, such as asthma, should limit prolonged outdoor exertion.
151-200	Unhealthy	Everyone may begin to experience health effects; members of sensitive groups may experience more serious health effects	Active children and adults, and people with respiratory disease, such as asthma, should avoid prolonged outdoor exertion; everyone else, especially children, should limit prolonged outdoor exertion
201-300	Very Unhealthy	Health warnings of emergency conditions. The entire population is more likely to be affected.	Active children and adults, and people with respiratory disease, such as asthma, should avoid all outdoor exertion; everyone else, especially children, should limit outdoor exertion.
300+	Hazardous	Health alert: everyone may experience more serious health effects	Everyone should avoid all outdoor exertion

AQI

Air Pollution Level

Health Implications

Cautionary Statement (for PM2.5)

0 - 50

Good

Air quality is considered satisfactory, and air pollution poses little or no risk

None

51 -100

Moderate

Air quality is acceptable; however, for some pollutants there may be a moderate health concern for a very small number of people who are unusually sensitive to air pollution.

Active children and adults, and people with respiratory disease, such as asthma, should limit prolonged outdoor exertion.

101-150

Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups

Members of sensitive groups may experience health effects. The general public is not likely to be affected.

Active children and adults, and people with respiratory disease, such as asthma, should limit prolonged outdoor exertion.

151-200

Unhealthy

Everyone may begin to experience health effects; members of sensitive groups may experience more serious health effects

Active children and adults, and people with respiratory disease, such as asthma, should avoid prolonged outdoor exertion; everyone else, especially children, should limit prolonged outdoor exertion

201-300

Very Unhealthy

Health warnings of emergency conditions. The entire population is more likely to be affected.

Active children and adults, and people with respiratory disease, such as asthma, should avoid all outdoor exertion; everyone else, especially children, should limit outdoor exertion.

300+

Hazardous

Health alert: everyone may experience more serious health effects

Everyone should avoid all outdoor exertion

Air Quality Forecast in South America

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