Abstract
Benzo [a] pyrene (BaP) in the atmosphere possess great carcinogenic potential to human health, and the understanding of its scavenging mechanisms has attracted considerable attention. In this work, a new quantitative method is proposed to make a comparative analysis of the long-term contributions of wet deposition and photodegradation to BaP removal based on multi-fractal detrended cross-correlation analysis (MFDCCA). According to the precipitation and global solar radiation (GSR) observations from 1998 to 2016 for two urban sites (Central/Western District and TsuenWan) in Hong Kong, the wet deposition and photodegradation of BaP are analyzed. Using MFDCCA method, long-term cross-correlation between precipitation/GSR and BaP are investigated. Moreover, the differences of multifractal features in cross-correlations of precipitation-BaP and GSR-BaP system are analyzed. Strong long-term persistence is observed in the cross-correlations for precipitation-BaP system in a one-year cycle; while cross-correlations between GSR and BaP show weak persistence over the whole timescale. Based on the meteorology in Hong Kong, this difference has been discussed. Then, contributions of wet deposition and photodegradation to atmospheric BaP removal are quantified based on MFDCCA method, which are further compared between summer and winter. The comparative analysis suggests that wet deposition plays a more significant role in the removal of atmospheric BaP. Specifically, in summer, the contributions of wet deposition are twice as much as that of photodegradation for both two sites; while in winter, the contribution of photodegradation is a little higher than that of wet deposition to BaP removal. Meanwhile, for wet deposition, the contributions in summer are about ten times greater than that in winter; while for photodegradation, the difference in contributions between summer and winter are relatively smaller. Furthermore, based on sliding window technique, the temporal evolutions in the contributions of wet deposition/photodegradation to BaP removal have been presented for both two sites. On this basis, it is discovered that the comprehensive contributions of wet deposition and photodegradation peak in June, and reach their lowest levels in December for both two sites. Quantifying the contribution of meteorological factors to the removal of atmospheric BaP is help for understanding its geochemical cycle.
Highlights
Benzo (a) pyrene (BaP) is mainly produced by the incomplete combustion processes, such as biofuel combustion, industrial production, vehicle exhaust, etc[1,2,3,4]
In order to confirm whether precipitation or global solar radiation (GSR) contributes to the removal of atmospheric Benzo [a] pyrene (BaP), it is necessary to test the decay pattern of cross-correlations between them by the detrended cross-correlation analysis (DCCA) exponent hxy(2)
Based on multi-fractal detrended cross-correlation analysis (MFDCCA) method, it is found that the cross-correlations between precipitation and BaP present strong long-term persistence within 1-year time scale
Summary
Benzo (a) pyrene (BaP) is mainly produced by the incomplete combustion processes, such as biofuel combustion, industrial production, vehicle exhaust, etc[1,2,3,4]. The capability of wet deposition in removal of BaP was mainly examined by collecting and analyzing rainfall samples by laboratory e xperiment[15,16,17,18,29] In this way, the contribution of precipitation to BaP removal can only be quantitatively determined in a short time scale, but the analysis results based on short-term data tend to undergo large fluctuations. In real atmosphere, it is difficult to quantitatively estimate the long-term trends in the contribution of wet deposition and photodegradation to BaP removal. An advanced version of the DCCA method, namely multi-fractal detrended cross-correlation analysis (MFDCCA), has been developed to further investigate the multi-fractal behavior between two series recorded simultaneously[42].these methods play an important role in revealing the influence of meteorological parameters on the temporal and spatial evolution of air pollutants in real atmosphere. Compared to wet deposition, the contributions of photodegradation to BaP removal still remain unclear
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