Columnar and surface urban aerosol in the Moscow megacity according to measurements and simulations with the COSMO-ART model

Abstract

Abstract. Urban aerosol pollution was analyzed over the Moscow megacity region using the COSMO-ART (COSMO – COnsortium for Small-scale MOdelling, ART – Aerosols and Reactive Trace gases) online coupled mesoscale model system and intensive measurement campaigns at the Moscow State University Meteorological Observatory (MSU MO, 55.707∘ N, 37.522∘ E) during the April–May period in 2018 and 2019. We analyzed mass concentrations of particulate matter with diameters smaller than 10 µm (PM10), black carbon (BC) and aerosol gas precursors (NOx, SO2, CHx) as well as columnar aerosol parameters for fine and coarse modes together with different meteorological parameters, including an index characterizing the intensity of particle dispersion (IPD). Both model and experimental datasets have shown a statistically significant linear correlation of BC with NO2 and PM10 mass concentrations, which indicates mostly common sources of emissions of these substances. There was a pronounced increase in the BC/PM10 ratio from 0.7 % to 5.9 %, with the decrease in the IPD index related to the amplification of the atmospheric stratification. We also found an inverse dependence between the BC/PM10 ratio and columnar single-scattering albedo (SSA) for the intense air mixing conditions. This dependence together with the obtained negative correlation between wind speed and BC/PM10 may serve as an indicator of changes in the absorbing properties of the atmosphere due to meteorological factors. On average, the relatively low BC / PM10 ratio (for urban regions) of 4.7 % is the cause of the observed relatively high SSA = 0.94 in Moscow. Using long-term parallel aerosol optical depth (AOD) measurements over the 2006–2020 period at the MSU MO and under upwind clean background conditions at Zvenigorod Scientific Station (ZSS) of the IAP RAS (55.7∘ N, 36.8∘ E), we estimated the urban component of AOD (AODurb) and some other parameters as the differences at these sites. The annual mean AODurb at 550 nm was about 0.021 with more than 85 % of the fine aerosol mode. The comparisons between AODurb obtained from the model and measurements during this experiment have revealed a similar level of aerosol pollution of about AODurb=0.015–0.019, which comprised 15 %–19 % of the total AOD at 550 nm. The urban component of PM10 (PM10urb) was about 16 µg m−3 according to the measurements and 6 µg m−3 according to the COSMO-ART simulations. We obtained a pronounced diurnal cycle of PM10urb and urban BC (BCurb) as well as their strong correlation with the IPDs. With the IPD index change from 3 to 1 at night, there was about a 4 times increase in PM10urb (up to 30–40 µg m−3) and a 3 times increase in BCurb (up to 3–3.5 µg m−3). At the same time, no pronounced daily cycle was found for the columnar urban aerosol component (AODurb), although there was a slight increase in model AODurb at night.