Abstract
Large amounts of aerosol particles suspended in the atmosphere pose a serious challenge to the climate and human health. In this study, we produced a dataset through merging the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometers (MODIS) Collection 6.1 3-km resolution Dark Target aerosol optical depth (DT AOD) with the 10-km resolution Deep Blue aerosol optical depth (DB AOD) data by linear regression and made use of it to unravel the spatiotemporal characteristics of aerosols over the Pan Yangtze River Delta (PYRD) region from 2014 to 2017. Then, the geographical detector method and multiple linear regression analysis were employed to investigate the contributions of influencing factors. Results indicate that: (1) compared to the original Terra DT and Aqua DT AOD data, the average daily spatial coverage of the merged AOD data increased by 94% and 132%, respectively; (2) the values of four-year average AOD were high in the north-east and low in the south-west of the PYRD; (3) the annual average AOD showed a decreasing trend from 2014 to 2017 while the seasonal average AOD reached its maximum in spring; and that (4) Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and slope contributed most to the spatial distribution of AOD, followed by precipitation and population density. Our study highlights the spatiotemporal variability of aerosol optical depth and the contributions of different factors over this large geographical area in the four-year period, and can, therefore, provide useful insights into the air pollution control for decision makers.
Highlights
Aerosols, the liquid or solid particulate matter suspended in the atmosphere [1], have both natural and anthropogenic sources, such as volcanic eruptions, sand, dust, fossil fuel combustion, and industrial and traffic emissions [2,3,4]
To be consistent with Dark Target aerosol optical depth (DT aerosol optical depth (AOD)), the 10-km Deep Blue aerosol optical depth (DB AOD) data were resampled to 3-km resolution using the nearest neighbor method in ENVI 5.3 (Exelis Visual Information Solutions, Boulder, CO, USA), as shown in previous studies [25,85], based on the assumption that the variability of Deep Blue (DB) AOD data is small within the 10 × 10 km grid
In addition to the accuracy comparison, we examined if the coverage of the merged AOD data higher than that of original Terra Dark Target (DT) AOD and Aqua DT AOD data
Summary
The liquid or solid particulate matter suspended in the atmosphere [1], have both natural and anthropogenic sources, such as volcanic eruptions, sand, dust, fossil fuel combustion, and industrial and traffic emissions [2,3,4]. By absorbing and scattering solar radiation and perturbing the hydrological cycle, aerosols have a crucial effect on regional and global climate change [5,6,7]. Numerous aerosol particles contribute to increased levels of haze and lead to low visibility [8,9,10,11]. Res. Public Health 2019, 16, 3522; doi:10.3390/ijerph16193522 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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