All New York City public school students are ending their weeks at home, as persistent wildfire smoke from Canada continues to waft down the East Coast. Some private schools closed, too, as hazardous particulate matter threatened people’s health and turned the skies yellow.
With so many kids at home, parents might be fielding questions about why the world looks so different outside. WNYC host Michael Hill interviewed Mike Shanahan, planetarium director and science educator with the Liberty Science Center in New Jersey, on Thursday about the ins and outs of wildfire smoke.
An interview transcript is available below. It was lightly edited for clarity.
Michael Hill: Would you explain to our youngest audience what's happening outside? Where's this smoke coming from?
Mike Shanahan: So the smoke is coming mainly from wildfires in Eastern Canada. So hundreds of miles away. And the conditions of weather right now have brought this smoke down to our region.
Why does this cause the sky to change colors, though?
That's a great question. As you probably know, all that sunlight is basically made of all the colors of the rainbow.
When you have smoke in the atmosphere, the blue light, which is mainly short wavelengths of light, is easily scattered by these particles that are in the atmosphere from the smoke. They're bounced around, which stops the blue light from getting to your eyes and you perceiving the blue light.
Red light, which is longer wavelengths, can penetrate the smoke more easily. Therefore, you see more red, orange and yellow in the sky than you would see under normal circumstances.
Some of the sunlight I saw yesterday, actually looked orange. Officials such as Mayor Eric Adams want New Yorkers to minimize outdoor activity.
Why do experts say it's a bad idea to do things like play in the park or run outside?
Everything that normally is good is not recommended today. As you're outside where all the smoke is, especially as you exercise, you breathe in a lot of the air.
That can get into your lungs.
And so during this unique circumstance, we're under, being indoors with the windows closed is a really, really good idea.
Some kids may have feelings about wearing a mask again, as we all might, after the years of COVID-19.
How does masking help protect people from the smoke?
Well, at least N95 masks are recommended because it does help to keep out some of the particles of the matter. The good news is, of course, is that we do expect this to end fairly shortly, within a day or two.
So if one masks up to be on the safe side outside, it's going to be a short-term step that we have to take to deal with this circumstance.
We certainly would welcome that. What will make this smoke go away, Mike?
Well, there was this pressure system off the coast that's been kind of directing the smoke from Canada down to us — that's coming to an end.
There's some chances of rain, too, which would certainly help.
But if not that, then Friday, we're expecting to see changes in the air pressure and the wind conditions that will, we hope, take this out of our neck of the woods.
As bad as all of this is for a health — and dangerous as well, and hazardous as well.
This is also an outdoor real learning opportunity for all of us.
It's a really striking circumstance. I mean, certainly absolutely dramatic. I flew into New Jersey two days ago, coming back from Florida, and the landscape looked incredible in both a good and a bad way.
Certainly, it's a way to really dramatically underscore the risk of these wildfire fires. So it's been quite the unusual visually engaging experience, but I wouldn't go outdoors much to observe it. Look through your window.
