Air Pollution is here for the holidays in Stockton
By Avery Parks (1), Tanisha Raj (2), Ector Olivares (2), Fotini Katopodes Chow (1) Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Berkeley Environmental Justice Program, Catholic Charities of Stockton November 27, 2023 Fall and winter bring visions of holidays and cozy gatherings around a fire. It may be a surprise that the changing seasons also bring very high air pollution, which can last for days or weeks at a time. The air pollution comes fr om vehicle exhaust, industrial emissions, heavy-duty trucks, agricultural burning, wildfire smoke, and even wood smoke from f ireplaces. Air pollution levels already exceeded healthy limits in Stockton over this Thanksgiving holiday weekend in 2023 (Figure 1). This article looks at data from winter 2022 to understand trends and patterns in Stockton, to find out when, where, and why the air quality is poor - and what we can do about it. Figure 1. Air quality index (AQI) (corrected) values in Stockton from the Purple Air sensor