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Well nobody asked but we felt the need to talk about air pollution and inversions anyway. The funky gunk that we're seeing outside this week in SLC is all air pollution. Now on a normal day this kind of situation wouldn't happen, or not nearly as badly so what makes this week different from other weeks?
Inversions are some seriously insteresting stuff. It gets the name "Temperature Inversion" because of the vertical profile of the temperature. On a typical day, air will decrease in temperature as you go higher in the atmosphere. On an 'inverted' day it does the opposite, air is increasing in temperature above the ground, that is not good. When you have warm air above the ground, the air below it cannot rise up and mix out, so you get stuck with nasty air instead.
When warm air is above a cold and snow covered ground layer even when the sunshine warms up the air where we live at the ground, it can't rise into the warm layer. The warm air higher up acts like a lid. So when we keep adding pollution from cars, homes, factories and other sources, the bad particles in the air can't mix out and we're left with a layer of gunk.
We need a strong front to help clear the air, while we might have some luck this weekend, the air quality will continue to decline in Salt Lake this week.
