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End date: 2023 × Start date: 2021 × Start date: 2013 × DDC: 550 × Type: Article × Subject: France × WGL Institute: TROPOS ×

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    Changes in black carbon emissions over Europe due to COVID-19 lockdowns
    (Katlenburg-Lindau : European Geosciences Union, 2021) Evangeliou, Nikolaos; Platt, Stephen M.; Eckhardt, Sabine; Lund Myhre, Cathrine; Laj, Paolo; Alados-Arboledas, Lucas; Backman, John; Brem, Benjamin T.; Fiebig, Markus; Flentje, Harald; Marinoni, Angela; Pandolfi, Marco; Yus-Dìez, Jesus; Prats, Natalia; Putaud, Jean P.; Sellegri, Karine; Sorribas, Mar; Eleftheriadis, Konstantinos; Vratolis, Stergios; Wiedensohler, Alfred; Stohl, Andreas
    Following the emergence of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) responsible for COVID-19 in December 2019 in Wuhan (China) and its spread to the rest of the world, the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic in March 2020. Without effective treatment in the initial pandemic phase, social distancing and mandatory quarantines were introduced as the only available preventative measure. In contrast to the detrimental societal impacts, air quality improved in all countries in which strict lockdowns were applied, due to lower pollutant emissions. Here we investigate the effects of the COVID-19 lockdowns in Europe on ambient black carbon (BC), which affects climate and damages health, using in situ observations from 17 European stations in a Bayesian inversion framework. BC emissions declined by 23 kt in Europe (20 % in Italy, 40 % in Germany, 34 % in Spain, 22 % in France) during lockdowns compared to the same period in the previous 5 years, which is partially attributed to COVID-19 measures. BC temporal variation in the countries enduring the most drastic restrictions showed the most distinct lockdown impacts. Increased particle light absorption in the beginning of the lockdown, confirmed by assimilated satellite and remote sensing data, suggests residential combustion was the dominant BC source. Accordingly, in central and Eastern Europe, which experienced lower than average temperatures, BC was elevated compared to the previous 5 years. Nevertheless, an average decrease of 11 % was seen for the whole of Europe compared to the start of the lockdown period, with the highest peaks in France (42 %), Germany (21 %), UK (13 %), Spain (11 %) and Italy (8 %). Such a decrease was not seen in the previous years, which also confirms the impact of COVID-19 on the European emissions of BC.
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    Long-range and local air pollution: What can we learn from chemical speciation of particulate matter at paired sites?
    (Katlenburg-Lindau : EGU, 2020) Pandolfi, Marco; Mooibroek, Dennis; Hopke, Philip; van Pinxteren, Dominik; Querol, Xavier; Herrmann, Hartmut; Alastuey, Andrés; Favez, Olivier; Hüglin, Christoph; Perdrix, Esperanza; Riffault, Véronique; Sauvage, Stéphane; van der Swaluw, Eric; Tarasova, Oksana; Colette, Augustin
    Here we report results of a detailed analysis of the urban and non-urban contributions to particulate matter (PM) concentrations and source contributions in five European cities, namely Schiedam (the Netherlands, NL), Lens (France, FR), Leipzig (Germany, DE), Zurich (Switzerland, CH) and Barcelona (Spain, ES). PM chemically speciated data from 12 European paired monitoring sites (one traffic, five urban, five regional and one continental background) were analysed by positive matrix factorisation (PMF) and Lenschow's approach to assign measured PM and source contributions to the different spatial levels. Five common sources were obtained at the 12 sites: sulfate-rich (SSA) and nitrate-rich (NSA) aerosols, road traffic (RT), mineral matter (MM), and aged sea salt (SS). These sources explained from 55 % to 88 % of PM mass at urban low-traffic-impact sites (UB) depending on the country. Three additional common sources were identified at a subset of sites/countries, namely biomass burning (BB) (FR, CH and DE), explaining an additional 9 %-13 % of PM mass, and residual oil combustion (V-Ni) and primary industrial (IND) (NL and ES), together explaining an additional 11 %-15 % of PM mass. In all countries, the majority of PM measured at UB sites was of a regional+continental (R+C) nature (64 %-74 %). The R+C PM increments due to anthropogenic emissions in DE, NL, CH, ES and FR represented around 66 %, 62 %, 52 %, 32 % and 23 %, respectively, of UB PM mass. Overall, the R+C PM increments due to natural and anthropogenic sources showed opposite seasonal profiles with the former increasing in summer and the latter increasing in winter, even if exceptions were observed. In ES, the anthropogenic R+C PM increment was higher in summer due to high contributions from regional SSA and V-Ni sources, both being mostly related to maritime shipping emissions at the Spanish sites. Conversely, in the other countries, higher anthropogenic R+C PM increments in winter were mostly due to high contributions from NSA and BB regional sources during the cold season. On annual average, the sources showing higher R+C increments were SSA (77 %-91 % of SSA source contribution at the urban level), NSA (51 %-94 %), MM (58 %-80 %), BB (42 %-78 %) and IND (91 % in NL). Other sources showing high R+C increments were photochemistry and coal combustion (97 %-99 %; identified only in DE). The highest regional SSA increment was observed in ES, especially in summer, and was related to ship emissions, enhanced photochemistry and peculiar meteorological patterns of the Western Mediterranean. The highest R+C and urban NSA increments were observed in NL and associated with high availability of precursors such as NOx and NH3. Conversely, on average, the sources showing higher local increments were RT (62 %-90 % at all sites) and V-Ni (65 %-80 % in ES and NL). The relationship between SSA and V-Ni indicated that the contribution of ship emissions to the local sulfate concentrations in NL has strongly decreased since 2007 thanks to the shift from high-sulfur-to low-sulfur-content fuel used by ships. An improvement of air quality in the five cities included here could be achieved by further reducing local (urban) emissions of PM, NOx and NH3 (from both traffic and non-traffic sources) but also SO2 and PM (from maritime ships and ports) and giving high relevance to non-urban contributions by further reducing emissions of SO2 (maritime shipping) and NH3 (agriculture) and those from industry, regional BB sources and coal combustion. © 2020 Copernicus GmbH. All rights reserved.
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    In situ, satellite measurement and model evidence on the dominant regional contribution to fine particulate matter levels in the Paris megacity
    (Katlenburg-Lindau : EGU, 2015) Beekmann, M.; Prévôt, A.S.H.; Drewnick, F.; Sciare, J.; Pandis, S.N.; Denier van der Gon, H.A.C.; Crippa, M.; Freutel, F.; Poulain, L.; Ghersi, V.; Rodriguez, E.; Beirle, S.; Zotter, P.; von der Weiden-Reinmüller, S.-L.; Bressi, M.; Fountoukis, C.; Petetin, H.; Szidat, S.; Schneider, J.; Rosso, A.; El Haddad, I.; Megaritis, A.; Zhang, Q.J.; Michoud, V.; Slowik, J.G.; Moukhtar, S.; Kolmonen, P.; Stohl, A.; Eckhardt, S.; Borbon, A.; Gros, V.; Marchand, N.; Jaffrezo, J.L.; Schwarzenboeck, A.; Colomb, A.; Wiedensohler, A.; Borrmann, S.; Lawrence, M.; Baklanov, A.; Baltensperger, U.
    A detailed characterization of air quality in the megacity of Paris (France) during two 1-month intensive campaigns and from additional 1-year observations revealed that about 70 % of the urban background fine particulate matter (PM) is transported on average into the megacity from upwind regions. This dominant influence of regional sources was confirmed by in situ measurements during short intensive and longer-term campaigns, aerosol optical depth (AOD) measurements from ENVISAT, and modeling results from PMCAMx and CHIMERE chemistry transport models. While advection of sulfate is well documented for other megacities, there was surprisingly high contribution from long-range transport for both nitrate and organic aerosol. The origin of organic PM was investigated by comprehensive analysis of aerosol mass spectrometer (AMS), radiocarbon and tracer measurements during two intensive campaigns. Primary fossil fuel combustion emissions constituted less than 20 % in winter and 40 % in summer of carbonaceous fine PM, unexpectedly small for a megacity. Cooking activities and, during winter, residential wood burning are the major primary organic PM sources. This analysis suggests that the major part of secondary organic aerosol is of modern origin, i.e., from biogenic precursors and from wood burning. Black carbon concentrations are on the lower end of values encountered in megacities worldwide, but still represent an issue for air quality. These comparatively low air pollution levels are due to a combination of low emissions per inhabitant, flat terrain, and a meteorology that is in general not conducive to local pollution build-up. This revised picture of a megacity only being partially responsible for its own average and peak PM levels has important implications for air pollution regulation policies.
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    Organic aerosol source apportionment by offline-AMS over a full year in Marseille
    (Katlenburg-Lindau : EGU, 2017) Bozzetti, Carlo; El Haddad, Imad; Salameh, Dalia; Daellenbach, Kaspar Rudolf; Fermo, Paola; Gonzalez, Raquel; Minguillón, María Cruz; Iinuma, Yoshiteru; Poulain, Laurent; Elser, Miriam; Müller, Emanuel; Slowik, Jay Gates; Jaffrezo, Jean-Luc; Baltensperger, Urs; Marchand, Nicolas; Prévôt, André Stephan Henry
    We investigated the seasonal trends of OA sources affecting the air quality of Marseille (France), which is the largest harbor of the Mediterranean Sea. This was achieved by measurements of nebulized filter extracts using an aerosol mass spectrometer (offline-AMS). In total 216 PM2.5 (particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter < 2.5 μm) filter samples were collected over 1 year from August 2011 to July 2012. These filters were used to create 54 composite samples which were analyzed by offline-AMS. The same samples were also analyzed for major water-soluble ions, metals, elemental and organic carbon (EC/OC), and organic markers, including n-alkanes, hopanes, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), lignin and cellulose pyrolysis products, and nitrocatechols. The application of positive matrix factorization (PMF) to the water-soluble AMS spectra enabled the extraction of five factors, related to hydrocarbon-like OA (HOA), cooking OA (COA), biomass burning OA (BBOA), oxygenated OA (OOA), and an industry-related OA (INDOA). Seasonal trends and relative contributions of OA sources were compared with the source apportionment of OA spectra collected from the AMS field deployment at the same station but in different years and for shorter monitoring periods (February 2011 and July 2008). Online- and offline-AMS source apportionment revealed comparable seasonal contribution of the different OA sources. Results revealed that BBOA was the dominant source during winter, representing on average 48 % of the OA, while during summer the main OA component was OOA (63 % of OA mass on average). HOA related to traffic emissions contributed on a yearly average 17 % to the OA mass, while COA was a minor source contributing 4 %. The contribution of INDOA was enhanced during winter (17 % during winter and 11 % during summer), consistent with an increased contribution from light alkanes, light PAHs (fluoranthene, pyrene, phenanthrene), and selenium, which is commonly considered as a unique coal combustion and coke production marker. Online- and offline-AMS source apportionments revealed evolving levoglucosan : BBOA ratios, which were higher during late autumn and March. A similar seasonality was observed in the ratios of cellulose combustion markers to lignin combustion markers, highlighting the contribution from cellulose-rich biomass combustion, possibly related to agricultural activities.