The Londonair Nowcast has been launched today as part of an updated Londonair website. The LondonAir nowcast uses a combination of measured and modelled NO2 and PM10 concentrations to produce a 20 m resolution map of air pollution in the capital each hour. The LondonAir Nowcast is an important step forward to help Londoners visualise the air pollution that affects their daily lives. The nowcast maps at LondonAir Nowcast are initially focused in central London but you can use the familiar Google maps navigation tools, or simply type in your postcode, to see air pollution anywhere within the M25.

The new LondonAir site also displays the latest measurements at over 100 monitoring sites in London and the south east using an updated map interface. We’ve made improvements to the graphing functions in the site to allow you to look, more clearly, at measurements over the last week, month or indeed any time period that you select. You can also use the ‘statistic’ tab to see how air pollution in each site in London compares to the UK air quality strategy objectives.

We have, of course, maintained our data download facilities providing access to over 400 million measurements of air pollution in London spanning nearly 20 years. LondonAir measurements can also be downloaded directly from our servers into the free, open-source innovative data analysis tools provided by the NERC OpenAir project.

This update is part of our longer term ambition to improve the LondonAir site for scientists and air quality professionals and, importantly, to improve the information that we provide to Londoners and those living in the south east. The release today includes new features and we are working on a comprehensive redesign to be released during 2011. We would welcome your feedback on the new site and ideas for LondonAir in the future.

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Item date 22/10/2010