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Title:The impact of temperature inversions on black carbon and particle mass concentrations in a mountainous area
Authors:ID Glojek, Kristina (Author)
ID Močnik, Griša (Author)
ID Alas, Honey Dawn C. (Author)
ID Cuesta-Mosquera, Andrea (Author)
ID Drinovec, Luka (Author)
ID Gregorič, Asta (Author)
ID Ogrin, Matej (Author)
ID Weinhold, Kay (Author)
ID Ježek, Irena (Author)
ID Rigler, Martin (Author)
ID Remškar, Maja (Author)
ID Markelj, Miha (Author)
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Language:English
Work type:Unknown
Typology:1.01 - Original Scientific Article
Organization:UNG - University of Nova Gorica
Abstract:Residential wood combustion is a widespread practice in Europe with a serious impact on air quality, especially in mountainous areas. While there is a significant number of studies conducted in deep urbanized valleys and basins, little is known about the air pollution processes in rural shallow hollows, where around 30 % of the people in mountainous areas across Europe live. We aim to determine the influence of ground temperature inversions on wood combustion aerosol pollution in hilly, rural areas. The study uses Retje karst hollow (Loški Potok, Slovenia) as a representative site for mountainous and hilly rural areas in central and south-eastern Europe with residential wood combustion. Sampling with a mobile monitoring platform along the hollow was performed in December 2017 and January 2018. The backpack mobile monitoring platform was used for the determination of equivalent black carbon (eBC) and particulate matter (PM) mass concentrations along the hollow. To ensure high quality of mobile measurement data, intercomparisons of mobile instruments with reference instruments were performed at two air quality stations during every run. Our study showed that aerosol pollution events in the relief depression were associated with high local emission intensities originating almost entirely from residential wood burning and shallow temperature inversions (58 m on average). The eBC and PM mass concentrations showed stronger associations with the potential temperature gradient (R2=0.8) than with any other meteorological parameters taken into account (ambient temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, wind direction, and precipitation). The strong association between the potential temperature gradient and pollutant concentrations suggests that even a small number of emission sources (total 243 households in the studied hollow) in similar hilly and mountainous rural areas with frequent temperature inversions can significantly increase the levels of eBC and PM and deteriorate local air quality. During temperature inversions the measured mean eBC and PM2.5 mass concentrations in the whole hollow were as high as 4.5±2.6 and 48.0 ± 27.7 µg m−3, respectively, which is comparable to larger European urban centres.
Keywords:air pollution, black carbon, sources, temperature inversion, mountainous area
Year of publishing:2022
Number of pages:str. 5577–5601
Numbering:Vol. 22, iss. 8
PID:20.500.12556/RUNG-7312 New window
COBISS.SI-ID:106269443 New window
UDC:53
ISSN on article:1680-7316
DOI:10.5194/acp-22-5577-2022 New window
NUK URN:URN:SI:UNG:REP:BBLM7P8Z
Publication date in RUNG:03.05.2022
Views:2410
Downloads:0
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Record is a part of a journal

Title:Atmospheric chemistry and physics
Shortened title:Atmos. chem. phys.
Publisher:European Geophysical Society, Copernicus GmbH
ISSN:1680-7316
COBISS.SI-ID:23215911 New window

Document is financed by a project

Funder:ARRS - Slovenian Research Agency
Project number:P1-0385
Name:Daljinsko zaznavanje atmosferskih lastnosti

Licences

License:CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Link:http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Description:This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.
Licensing start date:27.04.2022

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