Abstract
With rapid economic development, air quality has become a major environmental concern in China. In this study, gaseous pollutants (surface O3, NO2, CO, and SO2) and particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10) concentrations were monitored continuously from June to August 2017 in the urban area of Heyuan, and their relationships with meteorological parameters were analyzed. The maximum hourly levels of O3, SO2, NO2, CO, PM10, and PM2.5 exceeded 231, 41, 49, 1610, 134, and 66 µg/m3, respectively. The diurnal variations of O3 concentration followed AT fluctuations, with a peak at 12:00, while its precursors (NO2 and CO) showed two peaks. Principle component analysis and clustering methods illustrated the inherent relationships between key variables and surface O3 formation. The maximum average O3 concentrations occurred at humidity ≤ 70%, indicating strong vertical mixing, while other pollutants were maximized at humidity below 95%. Backward trajectory analysis demonstrated air mass transport mainly from the southwest at high or low altitude, indicating that summer O3 pollution in Heyuan originated both from the Pearl River Delta region and local emissions.
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The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
Financial support was provided by the Special Funds for Environmental Protection of Guangdong Province, the Guangdong special fund for science and technology development (2017B020216007) and the Heyuan special fund for science and technology development (180705150222485). The authors gratefully acknowledge the China National Meteorological Data Service Center for providing the meteorological data (http://data.cma.cn/en) used in this study.
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Wu, C., Li, J., Lin, X. et al. Characteristics of typical air pollutants in a valley-basin city in South China. Meteorol Atmos Phys 134, 14 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00703-021-00850-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00703-021-00850-w