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Author: Hermann, Markus × Subject: air quality ×

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Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Atmospheric mercury measurements onboard the CARIBIC passenger aircraft
    (München : European Geopyhsical Union, 2016) Slemr, Franz; Weigelt, Andreas; Ebinghaus, Ralf; Kock, Hans H.; Bödewadt, Jan; Brenninkmeijer, Carl A.M.; Rauthe-Schöch, Armin; Weber, Stefan; Hermann, Markus; Becker, Julia; Zahn, Andreas; Martinsson, Bengt
    Goal of the project CARIBIC (Civil Aircraft for the Regular Investigation of the atmosphere Based on an Instrumented Container) is to carry out regular and detailed observations of atmospheric composition (particles and gases) at cruising altitudes of passenger aircraft, i.e. at 9–12 km. Mercury has been measured since May 2005 by a modified Tekran instrument (Tekran Model 2537 A analyser, Tekran Inc., Toronto, Canada) during monthly intercontinental flights between Europe and South and North America, Africa, and Asia. Here we describe the instrument modifications, the post-flight processing of the raw instrument signal, and the fractionation experiments.
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    Mercury plumes in the global upper troposphere observed during flights with the CARIBIC observatory from may 2005 until june 2013
    (Basel : MDPI, 2014) Slemr, Franz; Weigelt, Andreas; Ebinghaus, Ralf; Brenninkmeijer, Carl; Baker, Angela; Schuck, Tanja; Rauthe-Schöch, Armin; Riede, Hella; Leedham, Emma; Hermann, Markus; van Velthoven, Peter; Oram, David; O'Sullivan, Debbie; Dyroff, Christoph; Zahn, Andreas; Ziereis, Helmut
    Tropospheric sections of flights with the CARIBIC (Civil Aircraft for Regular Investigation of the Atmosphere Based on an Instrumented Container) observatory from May 2005 until June 2013, are investigated for the occurrence of plumes with elevated Hg concentrations. Additional information on CO, CO2, CH4, NOy, O3, hydrocarbons, halocarbons, acetone and acetonitrile enable us to attribute the plumes to biomass burning, urban/industrial sources or a mixture of both. Altogether, 98 pollution plumes with elevated Hg concentrations and CO mixing ratios were encountered, and the Hg/CO emission ratios for 49 of them could be calculated. Most of the plumes were found over East Asia, in the African equatorial region, over South America and over Pakistan and India. The plumes encountered over equatorial Africa and over South America originate predominantly from biomass burning, as evidenced by the low Hg/CO emission ratios and elevated mixing ratios of acetonitrile, CH3Cl and particle concentrations. The backward trajectories point to the regions around the Rift Valley and the Amazon Basin, with its outskirts, as the source areas. The plumes encountered over East Asia and over Pakistan and India are predominantly of urban/industrial origin, sometimes mixed with products of biomass/biofuel burning. Backward trajectories point mostly to source areas in China and northern India. The Hg/CO2 and Hg/CH4 emission ratios for several plumes are also presented and discussed.
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    Decreasing trends of particle number and black carbon mass concentrations at 16 observational sites in Germany from 2009 to 2018
    (Katlenburg-Lindau : EGU, 2020) Sun, Jia; Birmili, Wolfram; Hermann, Markus; Tuch, Thomas; Weinhold, Kay; Merkel, Maik; Rasch, Fabian; Müller, Thomas; Schladitz, Alexander; Bastian, Susanne; Löschau, Gunter; Cyrys, Josef; Gu, Jianwei; Flentje, Harald; Briel, Björn; Asbach, Christoph; Kaminski, Heinz; Ries, Ludwig; Sohmer, Ralf; Gerwig, Holger; Wirtz, Klaus; Meinhardt, Frank; Schwerin, Andreas; Bath, Olaf; Ma, Nan; Wiedensohler, Alfred
    Anthropogenic emissions are dominant contributors to air pollution. Consequently, mitigation policies have been attempted since the 1990s in Europe to reduce pollution by anthropogenic emissions. To evaluate the effectiveness of these mitigation policies, the German Ultrafine Aerosol Network (GUAN) was established in 2008, focusing on black carbon (BC) and sub-micrometre aerosol particles. In this study, long-term trends of atmospheric particle number concentrations (PNCs) and equivalent BC (eBC) mass concentration over a 10-year period (2009-2018) were determined for 16 GUAN sites ranging from roadside to high Alpine environments. Overall, statistically significant decreasing trends are found for most of these parameters and environments in Germany. The annual relative slope of eBC mass concentration varies between-13.1% and-1.7% per year. The slopes of the PNCs vary from-17.2% to-1.7 %,-7.8% to-1.1 %, and-11.1% to-1.2% per year for 10-30, 30-200, and 200-800 nm size ranges, respectively. The reductions in various anthropogenic emissions are found to be the dominant factors responsible for the decreasing trends of eBC mass concentration and PNCs. The diurnal and seasonal variations in the trends clearly show the effects of the mitigation policies for road transport and residential emissions. The influences of other factors such as air masses, precipitation, and temperature were also examined and found to be less important or negligible. This study proves that a combination of emission mitigation policies can effectively improve the air quality on large spatial scales. It also suggests that a long-term aerosol measurement network at multi-type sites is an efficient and necessary tool for evaluating emission mitigation policies. © 2020 Author(s).