380 µg/m³ in January: How Coal Smoke Reaches Your Lungs

Ulaanbaatar is the coldest capital city in the world. When winter temperatures plunge to -40°C, nearly half the city's residents — those living in the ger districts — burn raw coal to survive. The smoke from hundreds of thousands of stoves doesn't just disappear. It follows a path: from fire, through air, into lungs.

The numbers tell the rest of the story. The bar chart below shows PM2.5 concentrations across different locations and seasons — from the WHO guideline to peak pollution in the ger districts. The gap is staggering.

This is not an abstract environmental problem. It is a mechanical process — coal burns, particles form, inversions trap them, lungs absorb them, cells become inflamed. Understanding the mechanism is the first step toward breaking the chain.