Abstract
Abstract. Anthropogenic fossil fuel (FF) combustion, biomass burning (BB) and desert dust are the main sources of air pollutants around the globe but are particularly intensive and important for air quality in Asia in spring. In this study, we investigate the vertical distribution, transport characteristics, source contribution and meteorological feedback of these aerosols in a unique pollution episode that occurred in eastern Asia based on various measurement data and modeling methods. In this episode, the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) in eastern China experienced persistent air pollution, dramatically changing from secondary fine particulate pollution to dust pollution in late March 2015. The Eulerian and Lagrangian models were conducted to investigate the vertical structure, transport characteristics and mechanisms of the multi-scale, multisource and multiday air pollution episode. The regional polluted continental aerosols mainly accumulated near the surface, mixed with dust aerosol downwash from the upper planetary boundary layer (PBL) and middle–lower troposphere (MLT), and further transported by large-scale cold fronts and warm conveyor belts. BB smoke from Southeast Asia was transported by westerlies around the altitude of 3 km from southern China, was further mixed with dust and FF aerosols in eastern China and experienced long-range transport over the Pacific. These pollutants could all be transported to the YRD region and cause a structure of multilayer pollution there. These pollutants could also cause significant feedback with MLT meteorology and then enhance local anthropogenic pollution. This study highlights the importance of intensive vertical measurement in eastern China and the downwind Pacific Ocean and raises the need for quantitative understanding of environmental and climate impacts of these pollution sources.
Highlights
With rapid economic development and tremendous energy consumption in the past decades, East Asia, especially eastern China, has experienced increasingly severe air pollution (Zhang et al, 2012; van Donkelaar et al, 2010; Ding et al, 2016)
It highlights that in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD), which is a fossil fuel (FF) emission-intensive area and downwind of Asian dust, the mixing of Asian dust and anthropogenic SO2 may lead to complex chemical transformations, posing a significant impact on the regional-scale atmospheric composition and oceanic biogeochemical cycle
According to the trajectories starting at the ground level, we found that air masses near the southeast coast of China were mainly influenced by FF emission-intensive regions in eastern China, including both the YRD and the North China Plain
Summary
With rapid economic development and tremendous energy consumption in the past decades, East Asia, especially eastern China, has experienced increasingly severe air pollution (Zhang et al, 2012; van Donkelaar et al, 2010; Ding et al, 2016) Air pollution in this region is very complicated because of dense and intense anthropogenic activities, and multiple natural pollution sources (like windblown dust, biomass burning (BB) and biogenic emissions) and a complex monsoon climate. Dust aerosols and anthropogenic black carbon aerosols (soot) could influence the dynamics of the planetary boundary layer (PBL) through radiative perturbations and subsequent impacts on energy balance of the Earth– atmosphere system (Ding et al, 2016; Liu et al, 2016; Petäjä et al, 2016; Yang et al, 2017)
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