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Investigations of the Spatial and Temporal Variations in Organic Aerosol Sources within Europe Using 24 Long-term ACSM Datasets
GANG CHEN, MariCruz Minguillon, André S.H. Prévôt, Team COLOSSAL, Paul Scherrer Institute
Abstract Number: 304
Working Group: Source Apportionment
Abstract
Atmospheric aerosol is a suspension of liquid or solid particles in gas, which not only causes serious adverse health effects but can also reduce visibility and interact with ecosystems and climate. Organic aerosol (OA) has been identified as one of the major components of air pollution, representing 20 to 90% of the total submicron aerosol mass. However, the spatial/temporal variabilities of OA sources remain poorly characterized in Europe. Europe has a well-established air quality monitoring infrastructure with >50 Aerosol Chemical Speciation Monitors, ACSMs (Aerodyne Research Inc., MA, USA) in operation. Among these sites, 24 datasets have long-term (>1 year) measurements since 2016. In this study, we performed source apportionment (SA) applying Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) analysis using some novel techniques within SoFi Pro (Datalystica Ltd., Villigen, Switzerland), including rolling mechanism, a-value approach, bootstrap re-sampling, criteria-based selection, and uncertainty assessments. Ultimately, by following a standardized SA protocol, this work will compile and assess an updated, robust, stable, and accurate overview of OA sources/types with extensive spatial and temporal variability across Europe.
This study aims at being beneficial for policymakers to optimize air quality mitigation strategies, and to assess the effectiveness of already implemented policies. In addition, it will provide sound constraints to regional and global climate or air quality models to improve their precision and accuracy.
This work has been mainly supported by the COST Action CA16109 Chemical On-Line cOmpoSition and Source Apportionment of fine aerosoL (COLOSSAL), the related SNSF International Co-operation project SAMSAM (IZCOZ0_177063), and the Aerosol, Clouds and Trace gases Research Infrastructure (ACTRIS).