Abstract
Aerosols in the atmosphere not only degrade visibility, but are also detrimental to human health and transportation. In order to develop a method to estimate PM2.5 mass concentration from the widely measured visibility, a field campaign was conducted in Southwest China in January 2019. Visibility, ambient relative humidity (RH), PM2.5 mass concentrations and scattering coefficients of dry particles were measured. During the campaign, two pollution episodes, i.e., from 4–9 January and from 10–16 January, were encountered. Each of the two episodes could be divided into two periods. High aerosol hygroscopicity was found during the first period, when RH was higher than 80% at most of the time, and sometimes even approached 100%. The second period experienced a relatively dry but more polluted condition and aerosol hygroscopicity was lower than that during the first period. An empirical relationship between PM2.5 mass concentration and visibility (ambient aerosol extinction) under different RH conditions could thus be established. Based on the empirical relationship, PM2.5 mass concentration could be well estimated from visibility and RH. This method will be useful for remote sensing of PM2.5 mass concentration.
摘 要
大气气溶胶不仅降低能见度, 也危害人体健康和交通运输. 基于 2019 年 1 月在西南地区外场观测中的能见度、 环境湿度、 PM2.5质量浓度和干气溶胶散射系数, 本文发展了一套利用能见度估算 PM2.5质量浓度的方法. 观测期间, 经历了两个污染过程 (1 月 4–9 日及 10–16 日), 每个过程都可以分为两个阶段: 第一阶段相对湿度大部分时间都高于 80%, 有时候接近 100%, 且气溶胶吸湿性较强; 第二阶段相对湿度相对较低, 污染更严重, 且气溶胶吸湿性弱于第一阶段. 基于外场观测数据, 本文建立了 PM2.5 质量浓度与能见度 (或环境气溶胶消光系数) 在不同相对湿度下的关系. 基于该关系, 可以利用能见度和相对湿度很好地估算 PM2.5 质量浓度. 该方法也可以用于改进 PM2.5 质量浓度的遥感反演。
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by a National Science and Technology Major Project (Grant No. 2016YFC 0200403) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41675037 and 41675038).
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Article Highlights
• Aerosol hygroscopicity was found to decline during pollution episodes.
• An improved method for estimating PM2.5 mass concentration from visibility and RH was established.
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Ji, D., Deng, Z., Sun, X. et al. Estimation of PM2.5 Mass Concentration from Visibility. Adv. Atmos. Sci. 37, 671–678 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00376-020-0009-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00376-020-0009-7