The ponds have frozen over again; a short thaw turned the surface to slush, which over the past three nights has solidified utterly. No worries about traversing this ice sheet.
Below: despite the day's beauty, the air quality is execrable. To the left a panorama of Warsaw taken on Christmas Day (-4C); not the best visibility in any case (compare the acuity of the foreground with the horizon). But just look at the picture on the right - taken today. Varso tower, the tallest in Warsaw (and indeed the EU) is just about visible in the right-hand photo.
The filth belching out of homes (typically older, single-family houses), car exhaust pipes do the damage. Warsaw's coal-fired power stations don't contribute much to the smog, but lots of carbon dioxide. Below: Siekierki power station; with all the sliders maxed out on Photoshop to extract the image of the chimneys out of the smog.
And still they come: another full train-load of coal on its way from the Silesian coalfields hauled by a pair of Newag Dragon 2 locos on the electrified mainline. Trains are typically 40 wagons long, each one capable of carrying 60 tonnes of coal. This train is heading toward Okęcie sidings, from where a diesel loco will take the wagons to the power station back down along the parallel, non-electrified, track swinging off to Siekierki beyond Nowa Iwiczna station. The chimneys of the power station are visible on the horizon, as is a band of filthy air.
Below: a Soviet-built M62 diesel loco with a full rake of coal wagons heading to Siekierki. Photo taken from the other side of the tracks to the photo above with a much wider-angle lens.
Back towards the warmth of home - two hours outside at minus 10C holds no terrors if you're warmly dressed. Below: birch trees along ul. Dumki.
This time last year:
Jakubowizna - moonrise kingdom
Derbyshire in the snow
This time eight years ago:
Is Britain over-golfed?
This time ten years:
Everybody's out on the road today
This time 11 years ago:
50% off and nothing to pay till June 2016
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2 comments:
Siekierki emission contains relatively low percentage of pollutants: what you show on the photograph is mostly steam. "Low emission" from individual houses burning trash kills us in Warsaw.
I can recommend this site for air quality monitoring:
https://warsaw.maps.sensor.community/#10/52.2333/21.0167
It is fed with community-driven data from community-driven sensors.
It is possible to build your own sensor to add data from your backyard; I have one installed on my balcony.
On 31 December every year the impact of fireworks on air quality can be observed there - it is amazing to watch how the map of entire Warsaw goes red at midnight with PM10 and PM2.5 pollution.
@ Anonymous
Thanks for your comment - sorry it's taken me a while to reply! You are right - it is indeed mostly steam coming out of Siekierki. And agree - air quality after a half-hour barrage of fireworks was terrible! Will amend blog post accordingly.
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