Monitoring of Acid Rain over Korean Peninsula

Abstract

In order to investigate the temporal and spacial deposition characteristics of acid rain, five monitoring sites were set up in the central part of Korean Peninsula. Rainwater samples were collected by wet-only sampler from 1992 to 1997. The pH and conductivity values were measured and the major water soluble ionic components were also analyzed. Ion balance between anion and cation sum was calculated to check out the data quality of samples. The acidity of rainwater was influenced by the local sources and meteorological factors such as surface wind, moving path of storm, precipitation process, and so on. Backward trajectories were depicted to investigate the effect due to moving path of weather system. The rainwater shows strong acidity in winter and weak in summer. The pH and ion concentrations were highly dependent on synoptic weather system. In addition, we sampled fog/cloud at Mt. Sobaek (BAPMoN Station) from June to August 1995 and characterized the fog/cloud chemistry according to surface wind system of sampling site. The volume-weighted mean pH of fog/cloud samples is 4.39 at Mt. Sobaek during the sampling period.