Exploring the Severe Haze in Beijing During December, 2015: Pollution Process and Emissions Variation

Abstract

Severe haze episodes shrouded Beijing and its surrounding regions again during December, 2015, causing major environmental and health problems. Beijing authorities had launched two red alerts for atmospheric heavy pollution in this period, adopted a series of emergency control measures to reduce the emissions from major pollution sources. To better understand the pollution process and emissions variation during these extreme pollution events, we performed a model-assisted analysis of the hourly observation data of PM₂.₅, and meteorological parameters combined with the emissions variation of pollution sources. The synthetic analysis indicated that: (1) Compared with the same period of last year, the emissions of atmospheric pollution sources decreased in December 2015. However, the emission levels of primary pollutants were still rather high, which were the main intrinsic causes for haze episodes, and the unfavorable diffusion conditions represented the important external factor. High source emissions and meteorological factors together led to this heavy air pollution process. (2) Emergency control measures taken by the red alert for heavy air pollution could decrease the pollutants emission by about 36% and the PM₂.₅ concentrations by 11% to 21%. Though the implementation of red alert could not reverse the evolution trend of heavier pollution, it indeed played an active role in mitigation of PM₂.₅ pollution aggravating. (3) Under the heavy pollution weather conditions, air pollutants continued to accumulate in the atmosphere, and the maximum effect by taking emergency measures occurred 48-72 hours after starting the implementation; therefore, the best time for executing emergency measures should be 36-48 hours before the rapid rise of PM₂.₅ concentration, which requires a more powerful demand on the accuracy of air quality forecast.