Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Organic and Black Carbon Mass Concentrations in Lithuania

Julija Pauraitė,Genrik Mordas,Steigvilė Byčenkienė,Vidmantas Ulevicius

doi:10.3390/atmos6081229

Julija Pauraitė, Genrik Mordas + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos6081229

Copy DOI

Journal: Atmosphere	Publication Date: Aug 19, 2015
Citations: 19	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Center for Physical Sciences and Technology

Abstract

Both organic carbon (OC) and black carbon (BC) mass concentrations were measured in Lithuania at coastal/marine (Preila), rural (Rūgšteliškis), and urban background (Vilnius) environments have been analyzed to infer the spatial and temporal distributions of the OC/BC ratios from May 2013 to October 2014. OC/BC ratios reflected the location of the different sites, as well as possible different sources influencing air quality. The results from an industrialized and populated urban background area indicated that biomass combustion for heating contributed to BC and OC mass concentration. Typically, BC mean concentrations (±st.deviation) were higher in urban areas (1.72(±1.22 μg·m−3)) than in rural (0.40(±0.35 μg·m−3)) and coastal/marine (0.53(±0.43 μg·m−3)) during warm and cold (2.34(±2.15); 0.77(±0.52) and 0.84(±0.50) μg·m−3, respectively) periods, while OC concentrations were higher in urban backgrounds (5.91(±1.99 μg·m−3)) and rural areas (4.56(±3.98 μg·m−3)) during warm periods. The air mass backward trajectory analysis indicated influence of local sources in urban environment and strong influence of long-range transport in rural environment. A clear seasonal dependence of OC/BC ratios was observed at rural and urban environments. The highest OC/BC ratios were calculated in coastal/marine (6.3) and rural (9.5) environments in summer.

Highlights

Atmospheric carbonaceous aerosols constitute a significant part of the atmospheric aerosols, while a large part of them consists of organic material (~50%) [1]
The mean organic carbon (OC) values measured during the warm period in Preila (4.11 μg·m−3) and Rūgšteliškis (4.56 μg·m−3) was higher compared to the cold period
The minimum OC concentrations varied between 0.01 μg·m−3 and 0.78 μg·m−3, while the maximum values during the cold period (75.44 μg·m−3) were more than four times higher of those in the warm period (17.78 μg·m−3) in urban background environments

Summary

Introduction

Atmospheric carbonaceous aerosols constitute a significant part of the atmospheric aerosols, while a large part of them consists of organic material (~50%) [1]. The carbonaceous atmospheric particulate matter consists of black carbon (otherwise called elemental carbon (EC) and a variety of organic compounds. Black carbon (BC) is a primary incomplete combustion-generated carbonaceous aerosol with a graphitic-like structure, while organic carbon (OC) may have both primary and secondary origins [2]. Primary OC may result from fossil fuel emissions, biomass burning or represent biological particles or plant debris [3] while the secondary OC can be formed in the atmosphere by gas-to-particle conversion [4]. As BC and EC in airborne particulate matter originates from the incomplete combustion of carbonaceous fuel [7,8], these two carbonaceous species are often well correlated [9]. A number of studies have been published regarding BC measurements with a view to assess the spatial and temporal variation [10,11,12,13,14,15,16]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion