Impact of typical meteorological conditions on air pollution over Pearl River Delta in autumn

Yuanlin Wang, Zhe Wang, Xueshun Chen, Zifa Wang, Shaojia Fan, Duohong Chen, Qizhong Wu

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Through analyzing the observed air quality index (AQI), pollutant concentrations, meteorological observations, synoptic charts and the WRF mesoscale numerical weather prediction results together, the impacts of weather conditions and meteorological characteristics on air pollution over the Pearl River Delta in October 2014 were investigated. Comparison with observations showed that WRF was able to reproduce temporal and spatial variations of ground-level and upper meteorological elements, with the correlation coefficient between simulated and observed average surface temperature, relative humidity and wind speed at nine cities of 0.90, 0.87 and 0.78, respectively. Analysis of all three pollution episodes in October showed that the bottom of the high-pressure control type and uniform pressure control type are the main meteorological factors of air pollution in the PRD. Low wind speed (<2 m·s-1) and pollutant transport along with the northerly wind led to the increase of the pollutant concentrations in the PRD. In addition, O3 was the primary pollutant when the relative humidity (RH) was lower than 65%, while PM2.5 became the primary pollutant when the RH was higher than 70%. The photochemical reaction during high temperature conditions also caused the increase of air pollution in the PRD.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)3229-3239
Number of pages11
JournalHuanjing Kexue Xuebao/Acta Scientiae Circumstantiae
Volume37
Issue number9
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 6 2017
Externally publishedYes

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Environmental Engineering
  • Environmental Chemistry
  • Environmental Science(all)

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