Period+3+-+London

London Smog Incident                  This is what London looked like through all of the smog This shows how hard it was to see an object a few feet away from you [|http://www.evworld.com/images/londonsmog.jpg]http://www.pyr.ec.gc.ca/airshed/images/london1952.jpg

The "London Smog Incident" started on December 5, 1952. It all started one **cold** December night. The air was colder than usual, and as a result of this, Londoners were burning more coal than usual. Light winds, cool air, and high humidity were the perfect conditions for fog. Due to the temperature inversion the smoke and fumes from the coal settled to the ground, and remained motionless. This created very dense smog not only on the streets, but also in people's homes. Due to the concentrations of smoke being extremely high, and water vapor condensing around tar and black soot particles the sun's radiation could not break through the smog. Some Londoners didn't think much of this though, because at the time London was known for its fog. The soot and tar particles than reacted with the atmospheric sulfur dioxide, forming solute sulfuric acid.The fog was highly toxic and smelled of sulfur because it was pollution from coal fires. This continued until December 10th, 1952 when winds finally dispersed the dense air mass into the North Sea. It is estimated that 4,000 people died from this incident. Many of the deaths were from pneumonia, bronchitis, tuberculosis, and heart failure. People who already had asthma before this 'incident' died mainly from respiratory diseases. Some of the acute affects from this were chest pains, lung inflammation, and diminished breathing ability.

Due to the enormous number of deaths, the British government decided to take action and clean up their nations air. In 1956 and 1968 the Clean Air Act was issued. This act gave local governments the authority to provide funds to households to convert their coal-fired heaters for cleaner energy sources such as gas, oil, smokeless coal or electricity. In 1962, 750 Londoners died as a result of fog, but nothing on the scale of the 1952 Smog incident has ever occurred again.

       Death rate with concentrations of smoke. This shows how temperature affected the smog, and trapped it. 

<span style="FONT-SIZE: 120%; COLOR: rgb(190,59,247)"> Works Cited: http://www.portfolio.mvm.ed.ac.uk/studentwebs/session4/27/greatsmog52.htm http://www.eoearth.org/article/London_smog_disaster,_England <span style="COLOR: rgb(0,88,255)"> http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/education/secondary/students/smog.html (Death rate chart picture) http://apollo.lsc.vsc.edu/classes/met130/notes/chapter18/graphics/inversion_trap.gif (Temp. affecting fog picture)

Comments: <span style="COLOR: rgb(0,88,255)">Very informative! You described the incident quite clearly. Maybe you could make the graphs at the bottom a little easier to read. It's hard to tell what the words say so they don't really help you understand. I like that cold is in blue.

Good job i liked all the information, wiht the pictures and graphs! :)

Nice job! The pictures really capture just how bad the smog was.

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<span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: rgb(249,226,226)"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: rgb(0,117,255)"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: rgb(255,255,255)"><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,88,255)">    <span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: rgb(249,226,226)"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: rgb(0,117,255)"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: rgb(255,255,255)"><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,88,255)">     <span style="COLOR: rgb(0,88,255)">  <span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: rgb(249,226,226)"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: rgb(0,117,255)"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: rgb(255,255,255)"><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,88,255)">