Abstract
Biomass burning and wind-blown dust has been well investigated during the past decade regarding their impacts on environment, but their co-existence hasn’t been recognized because they usually occur in different locations and episodes. In this study we reveal the unique co-existence condition that dust from the Taklamakan and Gobi Desert (TGD) and biomass burning from Peninsular Southeast Asia (PSEA) can reach to the west Pacific region simultaneously in boreal spring (March and April). The upper level trough at 700hPa along east coast of China favors the large scale subsidence of TGD dust while it travels southeastwards, and drives the PSEA biomass burning plume carried by the westerlies at 3–5 km to descend rapidly to around 1.5 km and mix with dust around southeast China and Taiwan. As compared to the monthly averages in March and April, surface observations suggested that concentrations of PM10, PM2.5, O3, and CO were 69%, 37%, 20%, and 18% higher respectively during the 10 identified co-existence events which usually lasted for 2–3 days. Co-existence also lowers the surface O3, NOx, and SO2 by 4–5% due to the heterogeneous chemistry between biomass burning and mineral dust as indicated by model simulations.
Highlights
Trans-pacific to west coast of North America, while the rest is carried by the northwesterly cold fronts along the east coast of China passing through Beijing, Shanghai, and reaches Taiwan[10] and significantly increases the PM10 concentrations along the transport pathway[11]
We reveal the simultaneous presences of two different plumes and the descending procedure of biomass burning through a case study, we analyze the intensified influence of biomass burning and dust storm on air quality for 5 years from 2006 to 2010, and demonstrate the changes of reactive gases due to the heterogeneous chemistry between biomass burning and mineral dust
Co-existence of Peninsular Southeast Asia (PSEA) biomass burning and Taklamakan and Gobi Desert (TGD) dust was firstly identified based on the analysis of Micro-Pulse Lidar Network (MPLNET) monitoring data[20] at the Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration and National Central University (EPA-NCU) site (24.97°N, 121.18°E)
Summary
Trans-pacific to west coast of North America, while the rest is carried by the northwesterly cold fronts along the east coast of China passing through Beijing, Shanghai, and reaches Taiwan[10] and significantly increases the PM10 concentrations along the transport pathway[11]. We reveal the simultaneous presences of two different plumes and the descending procedure of biomass burning through a case study, we analyze the intensified influence of biomass burning and dust storm on air quality for 5 years from 2006 to 2010, and demonstrate the changes of reactive gases due to the heterogeneous chemistry between biomass burning and mineral dust This is the first integrated study to investigate the co-existence of biomass burning and dust in the west Pacific region by applying multiple dataset including NASA Micro-Pulse Lidar Network (MPLNET) measurement, MODIS satellite product, surface observations, and Weather Research and Forecasting/Community Multi-scale Air Quality (WRF/CMAQ) model simulations. The revealed descending procedure of biomass burning driven by onset of dust storm can help the research community to investigate the potential impact of iron and nutrition depositions into the ocean ecosystem in the subtropical west Pacific as well
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