Variability of aerosol particles in the urban atmosphere of Dresden (Germany): Effects of spatial scale and particle size

Birmili, W.; Tomsche, Laura; Sonntag, A.; Opelt, Claudia; Weinhold, Kay; Nordmann, S.; Schmidt, Wolfram

doi:10.1127/0941-2948/2013/0395

Cited by 38 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 0 publications

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“…Power station plumes contain primary UFPs and excess secondary particle precursor substances H 2 SO 4 and ammonia. They are also consistent with the regional variability and temporal evolution of boundary layer UFP number concentrations and size distributions in urban and rural environments in Germany (Birmili et al, 2013;Ma and Birmili, 2015). A dominating role of three-dimensional transport processes on the distribution of aerosols a regional scale on has been observed also elsewhere in larger aerosol network studies (Demerjian and Mohnen, 2008).…”

Section: Summary and Discussionsupporting

confidence: 70%

“…In 2008, a national ground-based measuring network was setup in Germany (GUAN, Birmili et al, 2009. More detailed groundbased measurements covering parts of Germany are available from campaign studies in different regions Birmili et al, 2013). However, all single ground-based stations encounter the problem whether they are representative for the wider region.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Ultrafine particles over Germany – an aerial survey

Junkermann

Vogel²,

Bangert³

2016

Tellus B: Chemical and Physical Meteorology

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A B S T R A C T Ultrafine particles in the atmosphere may have important climate and health effects. As they are below visible size and not visible for remote sensing techniques, the majority of observations thus come from ground-based measurements. Some of those observations indicate elevated sources for ultrafine particles. Here we present for the first time airborne measurements of number concentration and size distributions of ultrafine particles along defined flight paths across Germany, allowing to derive background concentrations and to identify major single sources. A significant impact of fossil fuelÁrelated emissions on background and maximum concentrations was found. Maxima reaching up to 90 000 particles cm (3 were encountered in plumes of single large sources extending over more than 200 km. Modelling shows that about 10Á40 % of Germany were continuously affected by such plumes. Regional-scale transport and boundary layer dynamics were identified as major factors controlling spatial and temporal patterns of size and number distributions.

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Section: Summary and Discussionsupporting

confidence: 70%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ultrafine particles over Germany – an aerial survey

Junkermann

Vogel²,

Bangert³

2016

Tellus B: Chemical and Physical Meteorology

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“…Allan et al (2006) showed that several hours after a nucleation event, the particles in nucleation mode were principally organic in composition. In the continental boundary layer, new particle formation events tend to happen simultaneously over areas of several 10 km, regardless whether the area is rural or urban (Vana et al, 2004;Wehner et al, 2007;Birmili et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Many studies have attempted to characterize the temporal and spatial variability of ultrafine particles in urban areas (e.g., Costabile et al, 2009;Birmili et al, 2013). Evidently, the spatial variability of UFP concentrations depends on the spatial proximity to sources (Zhu et al, 2002) but also the dispersion conditions governed by topography, current wind speed and direction, and temperature inversions (Birmili et al, 2009a;Zwack et al, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimating the contribution of photochemical particle formation to ultrafine particle number averages in an urban atmosphere

Birmili

2015

Science of The Total Environment

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Ultrafine particles (UFPs, diameter<100 nm) have gained major attention in the environmental health discussion due to a number of suspected health effects. Observations of UFPs in urban air reveal the presence of several, time-dependent particle sources. In order to attribute measured UFP number concentrations to different source type contributions, we analyzed observations collected at a triplet of observation sites (roadside, urban background, rural) in the city of Leipzig, Germany. Photochemical new particle formation (NPF) events can be the overwhelming source of UFP particles on particular days, and were identified on the basis of characteristic patterns in the particle number size distribution data. A subsequent segmentation of the diurnal cycles of UFP concentration yielded a quantitative contribution of NPF events to daily, monthly, and annual mean values. At roadside, we obtained source contributions to the annual mean UFP number concentration (diameter range 5-100 nm) for photochemical NPF events (7%), local traffic (52%), diffuse urban sources (20%), and regional background (21%). The relative contribution of NPF events rises when moving away from roadside to the urban background and rural sites (14 and 30%, respectively). Their contribution also increases when considering only fresh UFPs (5-20 nm) (21% at the urban background site), and conversely decreases when considering UFPs at bigger sizes (20-100 nm) (8%). A seasonal analysis showed that NPF events have their greatest importance on UFP number concentration in the months May-August, accounting for roughly half of the fresh UFPs (5-20 nm) at the urban background location. The simplistic source apportionment presented here might serve to better characterize exposure to ambient UFPs in future epidemiological studies.

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“…We have tested the method simultaneously at these three different traffic locations, and results were found to be encouraging. Therefore, we assume that the proposed method could be applied to other traffic locations to address part of the spatial inhomogeneity of UFP between sites within a city reported in literature (Mejia et al 2008;Buonanno et al, 2011;Mishra et al, 2012;Birmili et al, 2013;Kumar et al 2014). However, this assumption could not be tested with the available data set.…”

Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%