Observations of the vertical distributions of summertime atmospheric pollutants and the corresponding ozone production in Shanghai, China

Ground-based multi-axis differential optical absorption spectroscopy (MAX-DOAS) and lidar measurements were performed in Shanghai, China, during May 2016 to investigate the vertical distribution of summertime atmospheric pollutants. In this study, vertical profiles of aerosol extinction coefficient, nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and formaldehyde (HCHO) concentrations were retrieved from MAX-DOAS measurements using the Heidelberg Profile (HEIPRO) algorithm, while vertical distribution of ozone (O-3) was obtained from an ozone lidar. Sensitivity study of the MAX-DOAS aerosol profile retrieval shows that the a priori aerosol profile shape has significant influences on the aerosol profile retrieval. Aerosol profiles retrieved from MAX-DOAS measurements with Gaussian a priori profile demonstrate the best agreements with simultaneous lidar measurements and vehicle-based tethered-balloon observations among all a priori aerosol profiles. Tropospheric NO2 vertical column densities (VCDs) measured with MAX-DOAS show a good agreement with OMI satellite observations with a Pearson correlation coefficient (R) of 0.95. In addition, measurements of the O-3 vertical distribution indicate that the ozone productions do not only occur at surface level but also at higher altitudes (about 1.1 km). Planetary boundary layer (PBL) height and horizontal and vertical wind field information were integrated to discuss the ozone formation at upper altitudes. The results reveal that enhanced ozone concentrations at ground level and upper altitudes are not directly related to horizontal and vertical transportation. Similar patterns of O3 and HCHO vertical distributions were observed during this campaign, which implies that the ozone productions near the surface and at higher altitudes are mainly influenced by the abundance of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the lower troposphere

Atmospheric Black Carbon along a Cruise Path through the Arctic Ocean during the Fifth Chinese Arctic Research Expedition

From July to September 2012, during the fifth Chinese National Arctic Research Expedition (CHINARE), the concentrations of black carbon (BC) aerosols inside the marine boundary layer were measured by an in situ aethalometer. BC concentrations ranged from 0.20 ng∙m−3 to 1063.20 ng∙m−3, with an average of 75.74 ng∙m−3. The BC concentrations were significantly higher over the mid-latitude and coastal areas than those over the remote ocean and high latitude areas. The highest average concentration was found over offshore China (643.44 ng∙m−3) during the cruise, while the lowest average was found over the Arctic Ocean (5.96 ng∙m−3). BC aerosol was found mainly affected by the terrestrial input and displayed seasonal and spatial variations. Compared with the results from the third and fourth CHINARE of summer 2008, and summer 2010, the inter-annual variation of BC over the Arctic Ocean was negligible

Vertical Structure of Air Pollutant Transport Flux as Determined by Ground-Based Remote Sensing Observations in Fen-Wei Plain, China

Air pollutant transport plays an important role in local air quality, but field observations of transport fluxes, especially their vertical distributions, are very limited. We characterized the vertical structures of transport fluxes in central Luoyang, Fen-Wei Plain, China, in winter based on observations of vertical air pollutant and wind profiles using multi-axis differential optical absorption spectroscopy (MAX-DOAS) and Doppler wind lidar, respectively. The northwest and the northeast are the two privileged wind directions. The wind direction and total transport scenarios were dominantly the northwest during clear days, turning to the northeast during the polluted days. Increased transport flux intensities of aerosol were found at altitudes below 400 m on heavily polluted days from the northeast to the southwest over the city. Considering pollution dependence on wind directions and speeds, surface-dominated northeast transport may contribute to local haze events. Northwest winds transporting clean air masses were dominant during clean periods and flux profiles characterized by high altitudes between 200 and 600 m in Luoyang. During the COVID-19 lockdown period in late January and February, clear reductions in transport flux were found for NO2 from the northeast and for HCHO from the northwest, while the corresponding main transport altitude remained unchanged. Our findings provide better understandings of regional transport characteristics, especially at different altitudes

Inferring global surface HCHO concentrations from multisource hyperspectral satellites and their application to HCHO-related global cancer burden estimation

Formaldehyde (HCHO) is a toxic and hazardous air pollutant that widely exists in atmosphere. Insufficient spatial and temporal coverage of surface HCHO measurements is limiting studies on surface HCHO-related air quality management and health risk assessment. This study develops a method to derive global ground-level HCHO concentrations from satellite-based tropospheric HCHO columns using TM5-simulated surface-to-column conversion factor with coarse spatial resolution. The method improves the factor more representative in finer grids by constraining TM5-simulated vertical profile shapes with satellite HCHO columns. The surface HCHO concentrations derived by the Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS) show good correlation with in situ HCHO measurements (R = 0.59) from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency surface network. We investigated how surface HCHO relates to urbanization and population aggregation over seven regions with high HCHO pollution. The results show urban HCHO increases as a power function with population size in China, India, and West Asia. HCHO concentrations in rural aeras also present strong log–log relationship with population aggregation in China, India, the United States, and Europe. Moreover, OMPS-derived ground-level HCHO concentrations were used to estimate global cancer burden caused by long-term outdoor HCHO exposure. The results show that up to 418188 more people worldwide will develop this cancer during the human life cycle. The global cancer burden is mainly from the South-East Asia region (33.11 %) and the Western Pacific region (22.95 %). This cancer occurrence in India and China is ranked 1st and 2nd in the world due to the large population size and serious HCHO pollution. Besides, global surface HCHO concentrations and cancer burden derived from the Environmental Trace Gases Monitoring Instrument which is China’s first hyperspectral space-based spectrometer are found similar patterns with that from OMPS. Our results provide new insight into the impact of population urbanization on HCHO pollution and global outdoor HCHO-caused health risks

Concentration and Size Distribution of Fungi Aerosol over Oceans along a Cruise Path during the Fourth Chinese Arctic Research Expedition

Bioaerosol can act as nuclei and thus may play an important role in climate change. During the Fourth Chinese National Arctic Research Expedition (CHINARE 2010) from July to September 2010, the concentrations and size distributions of airborne fungi, which are thought to be one of important bioaerosols, in the marine boundary layer were investigated. The concentrations of airborne fungi varied considerably with a range of 0 to 320.4 CFU/m3. The fungal concentrations in the marine boundary layer were significantly lower than those in most continental ecosystems. Airborne fungi over oceans roughly displayed a decreasing trend with increasing latitudes. The mean concentrations of airborne fungi in the region of offshore China, the western North Pacific Ocean, the Chukchi Sea, the Canada Basin, and the central Arctic Ocean were 172.2 ± 158.4, 73.8 ± 104.4, 13.3 ± 16.2, 16.5 ± 8.0, and 1.2 ± 1.0 CFU/m3, respectively. In most areas airborne fungi showed a unimodal size distribution pattern, with the maximum proportion (about 36.2%) in the range of 2.1~3.3 µm and the minimum proportion (about 3.5%) in the range of 0.65~1.1 µm, and over 50% occurred on the fine size (<3.3 µm). Potential factors influencing airborne fungal concentrations, including the origin of air mass, meteorological conditions, and sea ice conditions, were discussed

Detection of Temporal and Spatial Distributions of Atmospheric Nitric Acid Based on Ground-Based High-Resolution Solar Absorption Spectra

© 2020, Chinese Lasers Press. All right reserved. In this study, the high-resolution Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) is used to detect the concentrations of nitric acid (HNO3) in the atmosphere above the Hefei site. The vertical profiles and total columns of HNO3 are retrieved from the mid-infrared solar absorption spectra using the optimal estimation method. The vertical profiles and time series of the total columns of atmospheric HNO3 are obtained over the entire year of 2017. Further, the characteristics of the seasonal variation of HNO3, sensitivity altitude of concentration detection, averaging kernels of retrieved profiles, and degrees of freedom are analyzed. The vertical profiles of atmospheric HNO3 in different seasons denote that the HNO3 concentrations are higher at an altitude of 2030 km in the stratosphere and that they are lower in the troposphere. Furthermore, the total columns of HNO3 exhibit obvious seasonal variations, with a maximum in spring and minimum in winter. The amplitude of the seasonal variations is 9.82×1015 molecule/cm2. The data products obtained from the Aura MLS satellite are selected for performing comparison with the ground-based data to validate the measurements of the ground-based FTIR using independent data. The comparison results denote that the ground-based remote sensing and satellite observations display a consistent seasonal HNO3 variability. The ground-based data exhibits a good agreement with the satellite data with a high correlation coefficient of 0.83 even though the partial columns of the satellite data are lower than the corresponding ground-based total columns. The observation results indicate the reliability and accuracy of the ground-based FTIR for observing the temporal and spatial distributions of the atmospheric HNO3

First observation of tropospheric nitrogen dioxide from the Environmental Trace Gases Monitoring Instrument onboard the GaoFen-5 satellite

The Environmental Trace Gases Monitoring Instrument (EMI) is the first Chinese satellite-borne UV--Vis spectrometer aiming to measure the distribution of atmospheric trace gases on a global scale. The EMI instrument onboard the GaoFen-5 satellite was launched on 9 May 2018. In this paper, we present the tropospheric nitrogen dioxide (NO2) vertical column density (VCD) retrieval algorithm dedicated to EMI measurement. We report the first successful retrieval of tropospheric NO2 VCD from the EMI instrument. Our retrieval improved the original EMI NO2 prototype algorithm by modifying the settings of the spectral fit and air mass factor calculations to account for the on-orbit instrumental performance changes. The retrieved EMI NO2 VCDs generally show good spatiotemporal agreement with the satellite-borne Ozone Monitoring Instrument and TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (correlation coefficient R of ~0.9, bias <þinspace50%). A comparison with ground-based MAX-DOAS (Multi-Axis Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy) observations also shows good correlation with an R of 0.82. The results indicate that the EMI NO2 retrieval algorithm derives reliable and precise results, and this algorithm can feasibly produce stable operational products that can contribute to global air pollution monitoring