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0 pointsschiffern3y ago0 comments

Trust me, I know what vehicle exhaust smells like. ;)

Living outside the city, I'm not constantly fatigued to its odors. So that's not a factor.

But more to my original point, it disproves the "wind > location" idea (in my geography), since odor acts as a tracer for packets of air coming from the city.

I wish I could calm your anxiety, but on the bright side I am truly touched by your outpouring of concern for my respiratory well-being! Thank you, kind stranger.

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Retric3y ago· 2 in thread

You seem to misunderstand, Olfactory fatigue is very fast. When people fart for example the perception of smell goes away vastly sooner than the actual smell.

If you’re trying to judge air concentrations based on how intense the smell, it simply doesn’t work.

schiffernOP3y ago

I'm judging the presence of air pollutants. If I can smell it (ie above the lower detection limit), then I know I'm being exposed.

The converse is not necessarily true of course, but I can do this without hundreds of dollars in sensors. "Do what you can, where you are, with what you've got."

To account for sub-detectable pollution levels, I generally give myself a little extra buffer room. If I observe that detectable pollution odors begin at a certain point, I'll engage recirculate a half-mile before.

Generally nowadays I successfully avoid any detectable pollution/proxy odors, using the sort of preemptive planning I've described. You should try it!

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TL;DR this whole thread: recirculate gives better air quality, just flush CO2 periodically, ideally when in relatively cleaner air

https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-xpm-2013-sep-1...

https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2020/01/13/clearing-air-inside...

Retric3y ago

The converse is very much the problem.

Moving from constant levels of pollution to intermittent levels of population you notice ever stronger smells even as things improve. The reverse is also true, going from intermittent smells to constant toxicity it seems like things are improving.

This is the case because you most easily notice rapid changes not overall levels.

And again, both articles ignore the possibility of having better filters.

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