AAAR 33rd Annual Conference
October 20 - October 24, 2014
Rosen Shingle Creek
Orlando, Florida, USA
Abstract View
Vertical and Horizontal Aerosol Profiling Over Residential Areas
VERONIKA DOCEKALOVA, Jan Hovorka, Filip Kobrzek, Petr Marecek, Charles University in Prague
Abstract Number: 540 Working Group: Urban Aerosols
Abstract Ultrafine, fine and coarse particulate matter influence both air quality and human health. Particle concentration in the air is usually measured at the ground level and aerosol dispersal is only estimated based on modelling.
Therefore, the aim of this study was to measure size-segregated atmospheric aerosol (coarse, fine and ultrafine particles) near specific sources by airborne measurements. Data analysis provides information on vertical and horizontal size-segregated aerosol dispersal from source and its contribution to the air pollution in the surroundings.
Unmanned airship, remotely controlled with GPS 10Hz position tracking, electrically powered with propulsion vectoring which allows average cruising speed of 4 ms^-1, was used. The airship was equipped with specially designed gondola carrying three aerosol monitors and temperature sensor. The monitors acquired 1Hz data on TSP of PM10, PM2.5 and PM1 and number concentration of fine and ultrafine particles. Flights were made in February/March 2014 in the Moravian-Silesian region over urban and suburban areas of Ostrava city (Czech Republic). They were: small village near Czech-Polish state border down-wind of Ostrava city, residential district in the city near large complex of heavy industry and small settlement up-wind of the city. Repeated flights were carried out in several height levels up to 500 m above ground.
In the village locality, the measurement were conducted from midday to late afternoon, while in the residential district and small settlement there were rather very early morning flights conducted to record morning air boundary layer inversion stratification. As an example, in the village coarse aerosol concentrations were low and concentrations did not vary significantly nor with flying height nor over residential or field area. Number of nanoparticles slightly decreased with increasing altitude but no distinctive vertical profile was observed.
This project is supported by the Czech Grant Agency (P503/12/G147).