Scientists are working around London in the biggest ever air monitoring exercise in the city’s history. The weather could make a crucial difference to whether pollution rises to significantly high levels during the Olympics – and current warm weather conditions are expected to create a build-up of smog.

During the Games, meteorologists from the University of Reading will be among the team organised by the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) which is taking part in an experiment to investigate how weather, chemistry and the amount of traffic all interact to affect air pollution.

The Olympics will act as a real-life experiment allowing scientists to investigate how changes in traffic density and traffic flow affect air pollution. By improving our ability to forecast air pollution, the effect of future changes to traffic patterns as a way of reducing pollution exposure can be assessed, potentially leading to an Olympic legacy of cleaner air for people in the capital.

As part of the monitoring exercise, six shipping containers of equipment have been set up in the playground of a North Kensington school to monitor pollutants like ozone, which can exacerbate breathing and heart problems and which can build up when fumes from traffic exhausts react in hot, sunny weather. Particulates – tiny particles that can penetrate the lungs – are also being measured on the ground and by lasers scanning the London skies. The equipment is up and running from 23rd July to 17th August.

Equipment on the top of the BT Tower will be providing vital measurements of what‘s happening above ground and help to give a unique 3D picture of air flow, moisture and chemistry and how they control air pollution at street level.

The measurements are being taken as part of the three-year ClearfLo (Clean Air forLondon) project, and participants are hopeful that the Games will provide crucial data that could help planners to cut pollution across the city in the future.

Dr Janet Barlow, from the University of Reading, is taking part in the project. “One of the aims of the ClearFlo project is to be able to provide more accurate air pollution forecasts in the future, with less uncertainty about forecast pollution levels and information available for individual neighbourhoods, rather than just regions,” she explains. “London is such a busy city that it’s not often that we get a chance to measure the effect of major changes to traffic patterns on air pollution.”

A scientist at the University of Reading has called for immediate action to save pollinating insects crucial to British wildlife and the economy. Simon Potts (pictured), Professor of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services at the University’s School of Agriculture, Policy and Development, says ‘strong conservation action’ was needed now to reverse the decline in the UK’s pollinating insects.

The plea comes as the first episode of a new TV series, Bees, Butterflies and Blooms, is due to be broadcast on BBC Two at 8pm on Wednesday (8 February 2012). Professor Potts, an expert in the impact of pollinators on ecosystems, took part in the series, which is presented by gardening writer and broadcaster Sarah Raven and aims to spur viewers to help save the under-threat insects.

“Wild pollinators, such as bumblebees and hoverflies, are responsible for most of the pollination of wild flowers and crops in the UK, and it is these insects, not honeybees, who are the unsung heroes working hard for us,” Professor Potts says. “The value of pollination services to agriculture in the UK is about £440 million per year, with the most valuable contributions made by wild bees rather than managed honeybees.”

He continues: “Our British pollinators are under severe pressure from habitat loss, agricultural intensification, diseases and climate change and strong conservation action is needed if we are to keep these essential elements of biodiversity.”