Spatial variability, mixing states and composition of various haze particles in atmosphere during winter and summertime in northwest China

Abstract

Pollutants, which are usually transported from urban cities to remote glacier basins, and aerosol impurities affect the earth's temperature and climate by altering the radiative properties of the atmosphere. This work focused on the physicochemical properties of atmospheric pollutants across the urban and remote background sites in northwest China. Information on individual particles was obtained using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDX). Particle size and age-dependent mixing structures of individual particles in clean and polluted air were investigated. Aerosols were classified into eight components: mineral dust, black carbon (soot)/fly ash, sulfates, nitrates, NaCl salt, ammonium, organic matter, and metals. Marked spatial and seasonal changes in individual particle components were observed in the study area. Aerosol particles were generally found to be in the mixing state. For example, salt-coated particles in summer accounted for 31.2–44.8% of the total particles in urban sites and 37.5–74.5% of the total particles in background sites, while in winter, almost all urban sites comprised >50%, which implies a significant effect on the radiative forcing in the study area. We found that in PM2.5 section, the internally mixed black carbon/organic matter particles clearly increased with diameter. Moreover, urban cities were characterized by atmospheric particles sourced from anthropogenic activities, whereas background locations exhibited much lower aerosol concentrations and increased particle density, originating from natural crustal sources (e.g., mineral dust and NaCl salt), which, together with air mass trajectory analysis, indicates a potential spatial transport process and routes of atmospheric transport from urban cities to background locations. Thus, this work is of importance in evaluating atmospheric conditions in northwest China and northeast Tibetan Plateau regions, to discover the transport processes and facilitate improvements in climatic patterns concerning atmospheric impurities.