AAAR 34th Annual Conference
October 12 - October 16, 2015
Hyatt Regency
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Abstract View
Influence on PM10 of Air Mass Origin and Sea Spray Contribution at an Industrial Sampling Station
LUIS NEGRAL, Eugenia Zapico, Laura Megido, Beatriz Suárez-Peña, Yolanda Fernández-Nava, Elena Marañón, Leonor Castrillón, University of Oviedo
Abstract Number: 648 Working Group: Aerosol Chemistry
Abstract The PM10 composition was measured over a period of a year at a sampling station situated in an industrial area in the north of Spain. The chemical composition of PM10 was determined on 52 days during this period. This information was assessed in terms of air-mass back-trajectories to study the relation between PM10 levels and air-mass origin. Transport scenarios were classified as northern Atlantic, northwestern Atlantic, western Atlantic, southwestern Atlantic, northern African, Mediterranean, European and regional. Northwestern Atlantic advections and regional episodes were predominant throughout the sampling period, comprising 51.6% of the days of the study. As regards each air mass origin, the highest mean PM10 levels were found in the course of northern African advections (37.3 micro-gram/m3). However, only one of the eleven episodes of exceeding the daily limit value (50 micro-gram/m3) occurred during this last scenario. As to Na+, Mg2+ and Cl-, the contribution of sea spray clearly increased in northwestern Atlantic advections, when these species comprised up to 31% of PM10. As expected, the correlation between Cl- and Na+ was notably improved under these advections (R = 0.92). The highest Cl-/Na+ weight ratios (up to 5.9) were mainly found under regional episodes, exceeding the ratio of these ions in seawater. Apart from poor dispersion leading to the accumulation of pollutants, the burning of coal and a nearby ceramics factory might explain this excess chloride.