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Ambient Precursor Gaseous Pollutants and Meteorological Conditions Controlling Variations of Particulate Matter Concentrations
Author(s) -
Kuo YiMing,
Zhao Enmin,
Li MinJing,
Yu Hui,
Qin Jun
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
clean – soil, air, water
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.444
H-Index - 66
eISSN - 1863-0669
pISSN - 1863-0650
DOI - 10.1002/clen.201600655
Subject(s) - particulates , relative humidity , pollutant , environmental science , wind speed , atmospheric sciences , environmental chemistry , humidity , air pollution , chemistry , meteorology , geography , organic chemistry , geology
In many areas of China, rapid industrialization, urbanization, and transportation development have resulted in PM 2.5 concentrations higher than the WHO‐recommended level. The precursor gaseous pollutants, which will be finally transformed to PM 2.5, should be identified and controlled in the early stage. Dynamic factor analysis (DFA) was performed to investigate how precursor gaseous pollutants and meteorological factors associate with the temporal dynamics of fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) in Wuhan in 2013. The optimal DFA model satisfactorily accounted for the fluctuations in PM 2.5 (coefficient of efficiency was 0.88). The results showed that the temporal dynamics of PM 2.5 in Wuhan were primarily associated with sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides (NO x ), carbon monoxide (CO), relative humidity, temperature, and wind speed. PM 2.5 concentrations were also slightly affected by three common trends mainly representing soil dust and urbanization process. Temperature contributed more to the long‐term dynamics of PM 2.5 than wind speed and relative humidity did. High temperature favors the formation of PM 2.5 . However, relative humidity was negatively contributed to PM 2.5 . NO 2 and CO were the two major precursor gaseous pollutants contributing to the compositions of PM 2.5 . In Wuhan, NO 2 and CO mainly emitted from motor vehicles and industrial processes should be restricted, because these precursor emissions will finally format particulate matter.