The Great Smog of London: When Coal Killed a City — December 1952 Titelbild

The Great Smog of London: When Coal Killed a City — December 1952

The Great Smog of London: When Coal Killed a City — December 1952

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The Great Smog of London: December 1952Weather With Enthusiasm — Episode 11Historical Extreme Weather Series━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━EPISODE SUMMARY━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Five days in December 1952 turned London into a death trap. A stalled high-pressure system — an anticyclone — trapped millions of tonnes of coal smoke, sulfur dioxide, and acid particulates over the city in a dense, yellow-green fog that reduced visibility to near zero and killed thousands. This episode covers the meteorology, the human toll, the government cover-up, and the law that changed the world.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━KEY FACTS━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Dates: December 5–9, 1952Location: London, EnglandDeath toll: ~4,000 (1952 government estimate) | ~12,000 (modern research, 2004)Injuries/illnesses: ~100,000Duration: 5 days━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━METEOROLOGICAL DETAILS━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• December 4: anticyclone settled over windless London — created a temperature inversion• Cool stagnant air trapped below warmer air — zero wind to disperse pollutants• Daily pollutant output during the smog: 1,000 tonnes smoke particles, 140 tonnes HCl, 14 tonnes fluorine compounds, ~370 tonnes SO2 (converted to ~800 tonnes H2SO4)• Sulfuric acid formed in fog droplets — effectively acid fog breathed by millions• Coal sources: home fireplaces, Fulham/Battersea/Bankside/Greenwich/West Ham power stations, diesel buses, steam locomotives━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━GOVERNMENT RESPONSE & LEGACY━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• Initial government report (never finalized) attributed deaths to influenza• E.T. Wilkins, Atmospheric Pollution officer, found ~12,000 total deaths through mortality tracking• Feb 1953: Labour MP Marcus Lipton raised 6,000 deaths + 25,000 sickness claims in Parliament• 1956: British Parliament passed the Clean Air Act — world's first comprehensive national air pollution law• Established smoke-free zones, restricted coal burning, offered grants to switch to gas/oil/electricity• Updated in 1968 — became global template for environmental regulation━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━SOURCES━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• Wikipedia: Great Smog of London — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London• Britannica: Great Smog of London — https://www.britannica.com/event/Great-Smog-of-London• National Geographic: The Great Smog woke the world to coal dangers — https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/great-smog-of-london-1952-coal-air-pollution-environmental-disaster• London Museum: The Great Smog of 1952 — https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/london-stories/the-great-smog-of-1952/• Met Office: The Great Smog of 1952 — https://weather.metoffice.gov.uk/learn-about/weather/case-studies/great-smog• Texas A&M GeoNews: London Fog 1952 research — https://geonews.tamu.edu/news/2016/11/london-fog-1952.php━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━HASHTAGS━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#GreatSmog #London1952 #WeatherHistory #AirPollution #CleanAirAct #ExtremeWeather #WeatherWithEnthusiasmNew episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.Morning forecasts every day at 7 AM on Spreaker.Support the show: $5/monthBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/weather-with-enthusiasm--4911017/support.Weather with Enthusiasm is produced by Kol Simcha Productions.New episodes drop daily (B'N)— a morning forecast at 7 AM and historical deep dives Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact: kolsimchaproductions@outlook.comHistorical content is thoroughly researched and factually verified. After it has been factually verified it often will say so in the description. Should you find any mistakes, please email kolsimchaproductions@outlook.com so we can look into it and correct it. Not affiliated with any government agency or academic institution. Presented for educational and entertainment...
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