China's televised sunrises NOT due to air pollution.

[LongTomH]

I think someone posted the Daily Mail article referenced below, on Democratic Underground. Becky Kellog at the Weather Underground, states:

A report that China is running video of a sunrise on its giant LED screen in Tiananmen Square is correct. However, the original statement that Beijing is choosing to do so because pollution is blocking out the sun is pure conjecture.

The rumor started in the U.K.'s Daily Mail and went viral from there, including in an article on weather.com. Mashable was the first website to figure out the inaccuracy. In truth, the video of the sunrise runs every day on Tiananmen Square's big screen. It's part of an ad for tourism in China's Shandong province.

The erroneous report started when a reporter, based in New York, wrote a misleading caption underneath the sunrise-on-video photo. That erroneous caption and photo was then used in media outlets across the globe:

(INCORRECT CAPTION UNDERNEATH DAILY MAIL PHOTO) "The smog has become so thick in Beijing that the city's natural light-starved masses have begun flocking to huge digital commercial television screens across the city to observe virtual sunrises. The futuristic screens installed in the Chinese capital usually advertise tourist destinations, but as the season's first wave of extremely dangerous smog hit residents donned air masks and left their homes to watch the only place where the sun would hail over the horizon that morning."

The rest of the article discusses the fact that, air pollution in China's capital city is really, I mean really, really bad. Go to The Weather Underground for pictures of the LED screen and Beijing's smogs.

[geek tragedy]

1. regardless, it's the only way people in Beijing see the sun some days nt