The Washington metropolitan region could experience poor air quality today and Thursday as ozone and other pollutant levels rise, but experts say the region’s air is improving.

Weather forecasters are predicting an air quality index rating of Code Orange, meaning air pollutant levels exceed federal health standards, for today and Thursday. On Code Orange days, children and people with lung disease, heart disease, asthma or other respiratory problems may suffer from exposure to air pollution. On Code Red days, the general public may experience respiratory problems, as well.

Though the region doesn’t meet the Environmental Protection Agency’s standards for ozone and fine particle emissions — two of the six air pollutants the EPA monitors — the quality of air is improving, said Joan Rohlfs, chief of air quality planning for the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments.

“The air quality is getting better, so we don’t have those extremes of pollutant concentrations that we used to have,” Rohlfs said.

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Last summer, the D.C. region had 21 days of air quality ratings at Code Orange or above compared with 19 such days in 2005 and eight in 2004, she said. However, she said, the overall air quality has improved since 2002. Rohlfs said her agency is working to help D.C. meet the EPA’s ozone standard by 2009 under a plan submitted to the EPA as a part of the Clean Air Act.

EPA spokesman John Millet confirmed that the air has improved in the D.C. region since 2002.

Rohlfs said that on “action days” — days when the air quality index is at Code Orange or higher — residents are encouraged to avoid the outdoors when possible, take public transportation (the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission provides free bus rides on Code Orange and Code Red days) and refrain from using equipment that operates on gasoline.