RAHN

NARRAGANSETT — Kenneth A. Rahn is monitoring an Olympic-caliber competition from a paper-strewn office at the University of Rhode Island’s Bay Campus.

An atmospheric chemist, Rahn pulls data from across the globe to watch China battle the forces of nature and progress as it struggles to improve Beijing’s air quality in time for this year’s Olympic Games.

The Chinese government has ordered half the city’s 3.3 million cars off the road, closed factories and stopped most construction in an effort to bring more “blue-sky days” to the host city. Still, Mother Nature and the country’s booming industry threaten to blanket Beijing in a choking haze.

Concerns about air quality are so acute that members of U.S. cycling team arrived in Beijing this week wearing face masks to filter the city’s air. They later apologized to Olympic organizers.

Rahn’s grasp of the issues surrounding the games has him poised as the go-to guy among the national media. He has been interviewed on the Today show, twice by National Public Radio, and been quoted in newspapers and magazines from Miami to San Diego. TV crews have visited his second-floor office several times.

“It’s pure chance,” says Rahn, 67, an intense man who gesticulates as he explains his work. “I’m in the right place in the right time to answer questions.”

A professor emeritus at URI, Rahn launches his findings almost daily on his Web site, karws.gso.uri.edu, under the heading OlympicWatch. There, he uses weather patterns, along with air-quality readings from the Chinese Environmental Protection Bureau, to predict how China will fare.

“It looks to me like this is telling us the opening ceremonies are right on the border” between healthy and unhealthy air, Rahn said this week, pointing at his computer screen. “But after that, it’s anyone’s guess.”

RAHN HAS BEEN visiting Beijing since the 1980s and has analyzed years of atmospheric data at Tsinghua University. What he found, he says, is a cyclical pattern in which winds from the south bring in pollution from densely populated southern provinces. That pollution joins with Beijing’s own emissions and hovers over the region, obscuring mountains and buildings, until a cool, clean wind from Mongolia blows it out.

Rahn often says China needs the gods on its side as the games approach — the Mongolian weather gods.

In winning the right to host the Olympics seven years ago, China promised to clean its air to meet World Health Organization standards. Chinese officials say they have spent $17 billion on the effort to bring the world a green Olympics.

The country pledged to keep its air-pollution index, which measures particles in the air, in the range of 100 or less. Anything that level or below qualifies as “a blue-sky day.” (By comparison, Rhode Island ranks in the 10 to 20 range, Rahn says.)

But China is seeing rapid industrialization, with the opening of new coal-fired plants in the country and 1,200 new cars hitting Beijing’s streets each week. Rahn estimates that as much as 70 percent of the pollutants come from outside the city in the worst conditions.

“Anything you can name, they can make in China, and they are proud of it,” Rahn said. “It’s not good for clean air, but they have a booming economy.”

THE COUNTRY UPPED its efforts to clean the air three weeks ago, enacting the sweeping car ban, work stoppages and factory closures for the duration of the games.

Despite those measures, Rahn’s analysis shows the pollution level in the Beijing’s air climbing into unhealthful ranges within a week of the ban, and then falling as winds from the north swept in. His readings yesterday again showed the pollution index just shy of the unhealthful range with opening ceremonies less than 24 hours away.

“The automobile ban is surely not working,” he said, adding, “They are trying to do in weeks what is going to take decades.”

He dismisses as “desperation PR” the Chinese and International Olympic Committee officials’ characterizations of the hazy skies engulfing buildings as fog and mist.as

He is not alone in his skepticism. Athletes have been training in other locations, such as South Korea and Japan. Haile Gebrselassie, a world-record marathoner from Ethiopia, has opted to compete in the 10,000-meter race, citing worries about pollution.

What will happen if the air quality plummets is not clear, Rahn says. The Chinese government will not want to deal with the embarrassment of canceling an event, he said.

Asked how poor air quality might affect competition, he says, “It will slow them down, but they’re competing in the same air.”

China’s efforts — and the results — are captivating the larger scientific community, as well.

“Nobody can predict. We’re in uncharted territory. That’s what makes it so interesting,” Rahn says. “You wait. You watch, and you see.”

He adds: “We’re all hoping that this works.”

kmulvane@projo.com