Relationships between Particulate Matter, Ozone, and Nitrogen Oxides during Urban Smoke Events in the Western US

Buysse, Claire E.; Kaulfus, Aaron; Nair, U. S.; Jaffe, Daniel A.

doi:10.1021/acs.est.9b05241

Cited by 90 publications

(82 citation statements)

References 89 publications

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“…Before Lockdown (BL), During Lockdown (DL), and Resumption denote the periods of January 1-January 23, January 24-February 15, and February 16-February 28, respectively. The diurnal variations of mean O 3 concentrations for the periods of BL and DL in (a, b) clearly indicate that the mean O 3 concentrations for the non-photochemical reaction times from 20:00 PM to 9:00 AM (local time) during lockdown in 2020 were 53.7 and 58.0 μg m −3 in the urban and rural areas, respectively, much higher than the corresponding values (i.e., 18.8 and 35.6 μg m −3 in the urban and rural areas, respectively) before lockdown ◂ sink of HO 2 and NO x radicals, and chemical titration of NO (Buysse et al 2019;Li et al 2019;Yu et al, 2014).…”

Section: Inter-species Correlations In the Observationsmentioning

confidence: 76%

Unexpected rise of ozone in urban and rural areas, and sulfur dioxide in rural areas during the coronavirus city lockdown in Hangzhou, China: implications for air quality

Wang

et al. 2020

Environ Chem Lett

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The outbreak of coronavirus named COVID-19, initially identified in Wuhan, China in December 2019, has spread rapidly at the global scale. Most countries have rapidly stopped almost all activities including industry, services and transportation of goods and people, thus decreasing air pollution in an unprecedented way, and providing a unique opportunity to study air pollutants. While satellite data have provided visual evidence for the global reduction in air pollution such as nitrogen dioxide (NO 2) worldwide, precise and quantitative information is missing at the local scale. Here we studied changes in particulate matter (PM 2.5 , PM 10), carbon monoxide (CO), NO 2 , sulfur dioxide (SO 2) and ozone (O 3) at 10 urban sites in Hangzhou, a city of 7.03 million inhabitants, and at 1 rural site, before city lockdown, January 1-23, during city lockdown, January 24-February 15, and during resumption, February 16-28, in 2020. Results show that city lockdown induced a sharp decrease in PM 2.5 , PM 10 , CO, and NO 2 concentrations at both urban and rural sites. The NO 2 decrease is explained by reduction in traffic emissions in the urban areas, and by lower regional transport in rural areas during lockdown, as expected. SO 2 concentrations decreased from 6.3 to 5.3 μg m −3 in the city, but increased surprisingly from 4.7 to 5.8 μg m −3 at the rural site: this increase is attributed both to higher coal consumption for heating and emissions from traditional fireworks of the Spring Eve and Lantern Festivals during lockdown. Unexpectedly, O 3 concentrations increased by 145% from 24.6 to 60.6 μg m −3 in the urban area, and from 42.0 to 62.9 μg m −3 in the rural area during the lockdown. This finding is explained by the weakening of chemical titration of O 3 by NO due to reductions of NO x fresh emissions during the non-photochemical reaction period from 20:00 PM to 9:00 AM (local time). During the lockdown, compared to the same period in 2019, the daily average concentrations in the city decreased by 42.7% for PM 2.5 , 47.9% for PM 10 , 28.6% for SO 2 , 22.3% for CO and 58.4% for NO 2 , which is obviously explained by the absence of city activities. Overall, we observed not only the expected reduction in some atmospheric pollutants (PM, SO 2 , CO, NO 2), but also unexpected increases in SO 2 in the rural areas and of ozone (O 3) in both urban and rural areas, the latter being paradoxically due to the reduction in nitrogen oxide levels. In other words, the city lockdown has improved air quality by reducing PM 2.5 , PM 10 , CO, and NO 2 , but has also decreased air quality by augmenting O 3 and SO 2 .

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Section: Inter-species Correlations In the Observationsmentioning

confidence: 76%

Unexpected rise of ozone in urban and rural areas, and sulfur dioxide in rural areas during the coronavirus city lockdown in Hangzhou, China: implications for air quality

Wang

et al. 2020

Environ Chem Lett

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“…The ODR fits in Figures 8a–8f vary widely, but Figure S3 shows that the ΔO 3 /Δ β ratios in the buffer layer and free troposphere decreased exponentially with increasing peak backscatter. A recent analysis of surface measurements by Buysse et al (2019) also found less O 3 production in some denser smoke plumes. Possible reasons for the decrease in Figure S3 include reduced actinic fluxes in the denser smoke plumes, O 3 losses on aerosol surfaces, or changes in the fuels and/or combustion regime.…”

Section: Ozone Production In the Smoke Plumementioning

confidence: 84%

Ozone Production in the Soberanes Smoke Haze: Implications for Air Quality in the San Joaquin Valley During the California Baseline Ozone Transport Study

et al. 2020

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The Soberanes Fire burned 53,470 ha (132,127 acres) along the central California coast between 22 July and 12 October 2016, generating dense smoke and a variety of gaseous compounds that drifted eastward into the San Joaquin Valley Air Basin (SJVAB), an “extreme” nonattainment area for ozone (O3). These gases included nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds, the photochemical precursors of O3. The fire started during the California Baseline Ozone Transport Study, a field campaign that brought aircraft, surface, and remote sensing measurements of O3 and related species to central California. In this paper, we use the California Baseline Ozone Transport Study measurements to assess the impact of the Soberanes Fire on ozone and particulate air quality in the SJVAB. We focus our analysis on 27 July to 2 August when the smoke haze was heaviest and the highest O3 concentrations in the SJVAB during 2016 were recorded. Our analyses suggest that while 40 to 60 ppbv of fire‐generated O3 was transported to the eastern SJVAB in the 1‐ to 3‐km‐altitude range, relatively little smoke or fire‐generated O3 reached the surface in the Visalia area.

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“…), as a part of the NOAA FIREX AQ-2019 field experiment. We chose these sites because they are frequently affected by biomass burning each year [7]. The ambient samples were collected using dual-bed TD tubes at Spokane and Boise from 06/14/2019 08:00 PM to 07/19/2019 09:30 AM and 07/27/2019 11:00 AM to 09/12/2019 03:00 PM, respectively.…”

Section: Application Of the Dual-bed Td Tubes With Voc Auto-samplers mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Production of O 3 from forest fires is highly variable [6], and each fire is unique in terms of emissions, transport pathway, plume injection heights, and photochemistry. Eulerian grid models often have difficulty accurately modeling downwind O 3 concentrations [4,[7][8][9]. Because of these complexities and the impacts at relatively low particulate matter concentrations, it is critical to develop additional tracers for forest fire influence.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimization of a Method for the Detection of Biomass-Burning Relevant VOCs in Urban Areas Using Thermal Desorption Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry

et al. 2020

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Forest fire smoke influence in urban areas is relatively easy to detect at high concentrations but more challenging to detect at low concentrations. In this study, we present a simplified method that can reliably quantify smoke tracers in an urban environment at relatively low cost and complexity. For this purpose, we used dual-bed thermal desorption tubes with an auto-sampler to collect continuous samples of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). We present the validation and evaluation of this approach using thermal desorption gas chromatography mass spectrometry (TD-GC-MS) to detect VOCs at ppt to ppb concentrations. To evaluate the method, we tested stability during storage, interferences (e.g., water and O3), and reproducibility for reactive and short-lived VOCs such as acetonitrile (a specific chemical tracer for biomass burning), acetone, n-pentane, isopentane, benzene, toluene, furan, acrolein, 2-butanone, 2,3-butanedione, methacrolein, 2,5- dimethylfuran, and furfural. The results demonstrate that these VOCs can be quantified reproducibly with a total uncertainty of ≤30% between the collection and analysis, and with storage times of up to 15 days. Calibration experiments performed over a dynamic range of 10–150 ng loaded on to each thermal desorption tube at different relative humidity showed excellent linearity (r2 ≥ 0.90). We utilized this method during the summer 2019 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments Experiment–Air Quality (FIREX-AQ) intensive experiment at the Boise ground site. The results of this field study demonstrate the method’s applicability for ambient VOC speciation to identify forest fire smoke in urban areas.

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Relationships between Particulate Matter, Ozone, and Nitrogen Oxides during Urban Smoke Events in the Western US

Cited by 90 publications

References 89 publications

Unexpected rise of ozone in urban and rural areas, and sulfur dioxide in rural areas during the coronavirus city lockdown in Hangzhou, China: implications for air quality

Unexpected rise of ozone in urban and rural areas, and sulfur dioxide in rural areas during the coronavirus city lockdown in Hangzhou, China: implications for air quality

Ozone Production in the Soberanes Smoke Haze: Implications for Air Quality in the San Joaquin Valley During the California Baseline Ozone Transport Study

Optimization of a Method for the Detection of Biomass-Burning Relevant VOCs in Urban Areas Using Thermal Desorption Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry

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