AAAR 31st Annual Conference
October 8-12, 2012
Hyatt Regency Minneapolis
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Abstract View
European Air Pollution Hot Spot in Winter 2012: Middle Scale PM2.5 Variability
JAN HOVORKA, Michal Grégr, Martin Braniš, Petra Pokorná, Alexandra Baranová, Charles University in Prague
Abstract Number: 725 Working Group: Urban Aerosols
Abstract During monthly campaign (25 Jan.-21 Feb. 2012), aimed to characterize comprehensively atmospheric aerosol in city of Ostrava, Northern Silesia, the Czech Republic, highly-time resolved PM2.5 were determined by a set of laser nephelometers – DustTraks (DT). Five minute integrates of PM2.5 were recorded by seven DTs in a line arrangement. Inter-DT distances ranged from 260 to 2300 meters. Multiple-site PM2.5 measurement helped to evaluate position of the monitoring station for representative air quality measurement and influence of sparsely distributed local-heating sources.
There were not significant (alpha=0.05) differences for PM2.5 among the DTs according to Wilcoxon signed-ranks test for 2 dependent samples even though two distinct periods were distinguished during the campaign. The first period, smog spanning for 20 days, characterized low average temperature (-15 $^0C), and high PM2.5 median and maximum (140 and 310 micrograms per m$^3 respectively). In the second period average air temperature raised near to zero, two snow storms were occurred and as result, PM2.5 median and maximum were much lower (35 and 100 micrograms per m$^3 respectively). Based on results of this multiple-site measurement, we may conclude that placement of the monitoring station is representative for this urban area and local-heating sources, contrary to expectations, do not contribute significantly to the air pollution at the locality.