Google Offers New Treasure Trove of Air Quality Data To Researchers (techcrunch.com) 32
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Google has employed its network of street-view vehicles to also measure street-level air quality in recent years, through an initiative it calls "Project Air View." Today, it's making available to scientists and researcher organizations more of the resulting data from that ongoing initiative. The company is releasing an updated version of its air quality data set that includes information collected with partner Aclima's environmental sensors gathered between 2017 and 2018. The combined data cache includes info from the SF Bay and San Joaquin Valley area, originally starting in 2016, along with the additional two years' worth of data for those areas as well as for other parts of California, and other major cities, including Houston, Salt Lake City, Copenhagen, London and Amsterdam.
All told, Google's mapping data set for air quality now includes info covering more than 140,000 miles and 7,000 hours of combined driving time spanning 2016 through 2018. That's a significant base upon which to build a study of the trajectory of air quality changes over time, and Google plans to not only continue this program, but expand it with additional coverage for more cities globally, including in Asia, Africa and South America.
All told, Google's mapping data set for air quality now includes info covering more than 140,000 miles and 7,000 hours of combined driving time spanning 2016 through 2018. That's a significant base upon which to build a study of the trajectory of air quality changes over time, and Google plans to not only continue this program, but expand it with additional coverage for more cities globally, including in Asia, Africa and South America.
Re: (Score:2)
How much CO2 was emitted by the vehicles driving around collecting this information?
I was going to mod this funny, but... Generally, measuring something takes a small fraction of the energy of "something". And in this case, I think the CO2 information is a free benefit. That is my answer to your direct question.
Going back to the title, "Air Quality", which is NOT connected to CO2, I think it is nice that Google is sharing this data.
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"Air quality" refers to levels of specific-sized (2.5 micron, etc) particulate matter that lodges in the lungs, causing diseases.
No, it doesn't. That is a major focus, but there are others, like VOCs.
C02 does not affect the lungs or cause these kinds of specific problems.
No, it causes other problems, some of them health-related.
Cue cities suing Google for sampling their air (Score:2)
Did Google get permission to steal that air? Did they pay cities a fee?
If they were serious about helping (Score:1)
They would release this data publicly and not hide it behind 20 questions about who are you and what are you going to do with it.
Re: (Score:2)
Why? When has sharing unfiltered data with the stupid masses ever had a positive outcome?
No this data very much should be restricted to people who know what to do with it.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, we have to remember that only Top Men can ever handle complex information. And that we should always listen to Top Men.
I'm assuming that YOU think of yourself as one of the Top Men, of course....
Re: (Score:2)
No I am most definitely not. I'm not a scientist, mathematician, or statistician. What I am is self aware enough to know that I would likely not draw correct conclusions if I was given the raw data, and I'm smart enough to realise that other people are not that self aware.
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People who don't know what to do with it can't do harm with it, either.
Re: (Score:2)
I highly recommend you read the Daily Mail or the Telegraph on occasion for 2 reasons:
a) It's important to read what stupid people read so you understand how stupid people make stupid comments.
b) It's important to see just how horribly information can be (to use the nicest possible words) fucked up, and then completely absurd conclusions distributed en-mass.
Now excuse me I need to go write an angry letter to the government. According to the internet they are poisoning us with chemtrails. I read it on a "sci
A good check on our alleged EPA (Score:2, Insightful)
Does anyone trust the current alleged EPA to generate any reliable figures on air quality?
Re: (Score:2)
Given the figures the EPA presents seem to be in line with similar cities of similar sizes with similar demographics around the world I'm going to go with a yes unless you can show the data itself is untrustworthy.
Dubious (Score:2)
Measuring air quality from a car in traffic? I can't imagine that would yield results indicative of the immediate surrounding area.
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Indeed. What it does is give you air quality indicative of what a large portion of the population breath during peak hour. Also the air quality at the road correlates well with the surround and given weather patterns.
Also worth remembering is that street view cars don't just cruise down the highway. They also measured suburban and inner city roads and due to the weather patterns there those are very indicative of what people who aren't currently stuck in traffic are also breathing.