For peat's sake, it's not just hazy, it's smoggy!

The "haze" is back. Too bad we don't have a haze-minator to send it back where it belongs.

But how did people started calling the smoky pollutive stuff we get this time of year every year -- from across the sea -- just simply "haze"?

I've always associated haze with fog, to do with things like temperature inversion. So, we say "an early morning haze/fog" depending on how thick it is. The air is still fresh!

To be more precise, the stuff we are now getting is "smoke haze", suggesting something pollutive and bad for the health.

Or maybe we should call it "smoke fog" or "smog" which is a combination-word (portmanteau) from "smoke" and "fog", first coined to describe the effects of the Industrial Age's pollutive factories.

A contributor to a weather website has tried to describe the three separate terms (haze, fog, smog). Here's the site and the descriptions:

http://www.talkweather.com/forums/index.php?/topic/17132-haze-vs-smog-vs-fog-what-is-the-difference/

Haze -- Fine dust or salt particles dispersed through a portion of the atmosphere which reduce visibility. Haze is distinquished from fog by its bluish or yellowish tinge.

Fog -- A cloud based at the earth's surface consisting of tiny water droplets or, under very cold conditions, ice crystals or ice fog; generally found in calm or low wind conditions. Under foggy conditions, visibility is reduced to less than one kilometre.

Smog (contraction for 'smoke fog') -- A fog in which smoke or other forms of atmospheric pollutant have an important part in causing the fog to thicken, and have unpleasant and dangerous physiological effects.
Note: This definition for smog comes from the Australian Government's Bureau of Meteorology:

http://www.bom.gov.au/info/wwords/

Finally, why is the smoke haze/smog so worrisome for our health?

While Indonesia's forest fires are not strictly "industrial pollution", they are potent because of the peat that is found underneath the swamp forests where the fires occur. See:

http://www.peat-portal.net/newsmaster.cfm?&menuid=55&action=view&retrieveid=466

"[It is] now clear that the agro-industrial scale burning on peat soils [in Sumatra] is proving a disaster. As well as burning off the surface vegetation, these fires enter the organic soil particularly where surface drains have been dug either to facilitate log extraction or as part of the proposed estate drainage system.

"Once the peat is alight, it is extremely difficult to suppress and seemingly minor fires produce an enormous amount of smoke."

So, now you know why all that smoke is coming across the sea!