Oxygen Levels in Phoenix Area (Chandler: allergies, live, air quality)

[NE Live]

Ok this might be a strange question but I was unable to answer this when asked. Are the oxygen levels lower in the Phoenix area due to lack of trees, grass etc compared to other parts of the US? Is it at all a concern health wise or not really? Happy Holidays everyone and thanks in advance!

[vegaspilgrim]

The only thing oxygen levels depend on elevation. For Phoenix, at only 1000 ft above sea level, that's a non-issue. Whether or not it is easy or difficult for you to breathe depends on a whole variety of factors: allergies, asthma, dust, humidity levels, etc.

[gerrish150]

I don't quite think it works that way. I have a dregree in Respiratory Therapy. The air we breathe is comprised of 20.9% oxygen & the other percentage is nitrogen a few small other things.
The pollution from the city makes that air "dirty". Our noses act like a natural filtration. So, the dirty is usually filtered out somewhat.

When working out we are usually breathing heavy through our mouth, bypassing that filtration, pulling the dirty air into the lungs. The dirty parts of the air in this instance replaces what should be absorbs by oxygen, causing you to get tired more quickly due to lack of oxygen. It's not the ideal place to train heavy for marathons or anything outdoors, indoors is usually best here.

Other things to consider is Asthma? Do you have asthma? The dirty air my create more frequent episodes. Due have smoking related COPD? The dirty air may create more episodes.

When ranking the phoenix area on smog, the American Lung Assoc. ranks it at #15 for 2007.
When ranking the phoenix area on ozone particles we didn't make on their list. It named the top 26 states out of the 50 states.

Hope that helps.

[NE Live]

No asthma just allergies. gerrish150 am I off saying that most of the smog is concentrated in downtown Phoenix as is not so noticable from say Chandler or the outskirts of the downtown core? What I mean is not that you can see it from your home, but more that it doesn't hang over the suburbs as much? Thanks!

[gerrish150]

Allergies are a whole different ball game out here. They may not be bothered at all, or they may get worse. It's more concentrated over the city, but i'm pretty sure it's over the metro's too. What the concentration is, I don't know.

[vegaspilgrim]

Originally Posted by NE Live

No asthma just allergies. gerrish150 am I off saying that most of the smog is concentrated in downtown Phoenix as is not so noticable from say Chandler or the outskirts of the downtown core? What I mean is not that you can see it from your home, but more that it doesn't hang over the suburbs as much? Thanks!

Yes, you are off. It's not really smog; it more like dust pollution, but it doesn't just hang around downtown (which isn't much of a "core" anyway). Chandler will get pollution too. Some of the worst dust pollution in the valley is in the west valley. However, the east valley, especially northeast valley gets some of the worst ozone pollution, due to the direction of the winds. On really polluted days, especially when the air is totally stagnant, it will be polluted anywhere around Phoenix. Sometimes you can actually see the pollution backing up to the mountains.

[NE Live]

Would Chandler be far enough to the south to miss out on a lot of the bad ozone levels? Vegaspilgrim how many days a year would you say the air becomes "totally stagnant" and the pollution levels are high?

[AzDreamer]

Here's an article on Phoenix pollution from ASU. It says that ozone gets worse as you travel east. Along the base of the Superstitions it's bad.

http://chainreaction.asu.edu/ecology/digin/flow.htm

[Ponderosa]

Originally Posted by NE Live

Would Chandler be far enough to the south to miss out on a lot of the bad ozone levels? Vegaspilgrim how many days a year would you say the air becomes "totally stagnant" and the pollution levels are high?

Air quality in any given area depends on the direction the wind is blowing. No area is consistently better than any other (except maybe far north like Anthem) though there are patterns. Winds blow from the west in the summer afternoons when ozone is high, so it spreads to the east.

PM=10 (dust and larger particulates) is the problem here. Phoenix has about 10 days a year when PM-10 levels reach unhealthful levels at the worst monitoring sites in SW Phoenix. Moderate levels are common. There are only a couple of ozone violations on average - but quite a few "advisories" in summer. Phoenix is (or used to be) in compliance with EPA for ozone. All-in-all air quality is better here than many think it is. They are mislead because the "brown cloud" (PM-10) is so visible in the low-light angles of winter. Not saying it is great or anything, but it looks worse than it actually is.

Anyway, check it out yourself at:

http://aqwww.maricopa.gov/AirMonitoring/SitePollutionMap.aspx (broken link)

[Home_Kid]

if a static air sample in phx turns out 0.001% less O then say from a dense forest is Yo-Semite i'd be surprised. i think its more of a pollution issue than a O level issue.