The Contribution of Local Anthropogenic Emissions to Air Pollutants in Lhasa on the Tibetan Plateau

Abstract

The Tibetan Plateau (TP) is one of the most pristine regions in the world due to limited anthropogenic activity (Pokharel et al., 2019;Wang et al., 2011;Wei et al., 2020). The high-elevation pristine environment of the TP makes it vulnerable to climate change at global and regional scales (Duo et al., 2018;Yao, 2019). Recent studies have revealed increasing atmospheric pollutants associated with rapid urbanization on the TP (Kang et al., 2019;Zhao et al., 2020). Ran et al. (2014) found that the average mixing ratio of NO 2 in Lhasa in 2012 was 40 times higher than in 1998, due to a significant increase in NO x emissions. Average sulfur dioxide levels increased from about 0.15 in 1998 to 0.5 ppb in 2012. In recent years, the air quality in Lhasa has been increasingly influenced by aerosol pollution episodes (Cui et al., 2018;Duo et al., 2015). Chen et al. (2019) showed that the concentrations of six air pollutants (PM 2.5 , PM 10 , O 3 , NO 2 , SO 2 , and CO) in two cities on the TP (Nagqu and Lhasa) were similar to those in economically developed cities in Eastern China. Song et al. (2017) discovered that the annual mean mass concentrations of these six air pollutants on the TP from 2014 to 2016 were on the same order of magnitude as concentrations in Eastern China. More observational studies,

Strong Aerosol Absorption and Its Radiative Effects in Lhasa on the Tibetan Plateau

“…Lhasa is located in the southern TP and characterized with its river valley terrain (Figure S1 in Supporting Information ), surrounded by high mountains (over 5,500 m a.s.l), which prevents aerosol pollutants from dispersion. Aerosols in Lhasa are mainly issued from local anthropogenic activities, like traffic emissions, religious activities, coal combustion (Zhao et al., 2022), as well as long‐range transport from South Asia (Chen et al., 2022). The field campaign was conducted in the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research (29.63°N, 91.02°E, 3,640 m a.s.l.)…”