References

ACP

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics

ACP

1680-7324

Copernicus GmbH

Göttingen, Germany

10.5194/acp-8-7583-2008

Traffic restrictions in Beijing during the Sino-African Summit 2006: aerosol size distribution and visibility compared to long-term in situ observations

Cheng

Y. F.

¹ Heintzenberg

¹ Wehner

¹ Wu

Z. J.

¹ Su

² Hu

² Mao

J. T.

Leibniz-Institute for Tropospheric Research, 04318 Leipzig, Germany

State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China

Department of Atmospheric Physics, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China

17 12 2008

8 24 7583 7594

This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

This article is available from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/8/7583/2008/acp-8-7583-2008.html

The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/8/7583/2008/acp-8-7583-2008.pdf

Based on the long-term in-situ observations of aerosol particle number size distributions and meteorological parameters, the measures of traffic restriction during the Sino-African Summit (4–6 November 2006) in Beijing, China have been found to be efficient in reducing the number concentration of aerosol particles, in particular Aitken and accumulation mode particles, and in improving the visibility when local emissions dominated. The influence of traffic restrictions on the particle concentrations differed for different particle sizes. More significant effects on fine particles with diameters ranging from 40 to 500 nm have been found. Based on statistical analysis of long-term observations, under comparable weather conditions, the number concentrations of the particles in Aitken and accumulation modes seemingly were reduced by 20–60% when the traffic restrictions were in place. This change may be mainly due to the reduction of secondary particle contributions. However, it is worth to notice that the reduction of 60% might overestimate the effect of the measures of traffic control, due to the inherent data shortage with very high wind speeds in the comparison data population. Our size-dependent aerosol data also indicate that measures led to reductions in particulate air pollution in the optically most important diameter range, whereas further vehicle restriction measures might lead to an increase in ultrafine particle formation if the condensational sink further decreased. Assuming that there were no traffic restrictions and with normal levels of the vehicle emissions, the visibilities during the Summit would have been lower by about 20–45%. The fact that over 95% cases with visibility range lower than 5 km during 2004 to 2007 occurred when the local wind speed was lower than 3 m s−1 may suggest that the importance of the emission restrictions is highest when the wind speed is lower than 3 m s−1, concerning the improvement of serious low visibility situations in Beijing.

References 1

% vor jede Referenz Birmili, W., Stratmann, F., and Wiedensohler, A.: Design of a DMA-based size spectrometer for a large particle size range and stable operation, J. Aerosol Sci., 30, 4, 549–553, 1999.

% vor jede Referenz Birmili, W., Nowak, A., Schwirn, K., Lehmann, K., Massling, A., and Wiedensohler, A.: A new method to accurately relate dry and humidified number size distributions of atmospheric aerosols, J. Aerosol Sci., 1, 15–16, 2004.

% vor jede Referenz Bohren, C. F. and Huffman, D. R.: Absorption and scattering of light by small particles, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1998.

% vor jede Referenz Carrico, C. M., Bergin, M. H., Xu, J., Baumann, K., and Maring, H.: Urban aerosol radiative properties: measurements during the 1999 Atlanta Supersite Experiment, J. Geophys. Res., 108, D78422, doi:10.1029/2001JD001222, 2003.

% vor jede Referenz China-Daily: Beijing previews Olympic traffic plans during China-Africa Summit: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/2008/2006-11/07/content_726767.htm, 2006.

% vor jede Referenz Duan, F., Liu, X., Yu, T., and Cachier, H.: Identification and estimate of biomass burning contribution to the urban aerosol organic carbon concentration in Beijing, Atmos. Environ., 38, 1275–1282, 2004.

% vor jede Referenz Engler, C., Rose, D., Wehner, B., Wiedensohler, A., Brüggemann, E., Gnauk, T., Spindler, G., Tuch, T., and Birmili, W.: Size distributions of non-volatile particle residuals (Dp<800 nm) at a rural site in Germany and relation to air mass origin, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 7, 5785–5802, 2007.

% vor jede Referenz Fröhlich, C. and Shaw, G. E.: New determination of Rayleigh scattering in the terrestrial atmosphere, Appl. Opt., 19, 11, 1773–1775, 1980.

% vor jede Referenz Garland, R. M., Schmid, O., Gunthe, S. S., Nowak, A., Wiedensohler, A., Hu, M., Shao, M., Zeng, L., Zhu, T., Andreae, M. O., and Pöschl, U.: Aerosol optical properties observed during CAREBEIJING-2006: Characteristic differences between the inflow and outflow of Beijing city air, J. Geophys. Res., in review, 2008.

% vor jede Referenz Griffing, G. W.: Relations between the prevailing visibility, nephelometer scattering coefficient and sunphotometer turbidity coefficient, Atmos. Environ., 14, 577–584, 1980.

% vor jede Referenz Groblicki, P. J., Wolff, G. T., and Countess, R. J.: Visibility-reduction species in the Denver "Brown Cloud" – I. Relationships between extinction and chemical composition, Atmos. Environ., 12, 2437–2484, 1981.

% vor jede Referenz He, K., Yang, F., Ma, Y., Zhang, Q., Yao, X., Chan, C. K., Cadle, S., Chan, T., and Mulawa, P.: The characteristics of PM$_2.5$ in Beijing, China, Atmos. Environ., 35, 4959–4970, 2001.

% vor jede Referenz Husar, R. B., Husar, J. D., and Martin, L.: Distribution of continental surface aerosol extinction based on visual range data, Atmos. Environ., 34, 5067–5078, 2000.

% vor jede Referenz Imhof, D., Weingartner, E., Prévôt, A. S. H., Ordóñez, C., Kurtenbach, R., Wiesen, P., Rodler, J., Sturm, P., McCrae, I., Ekstr\"om, M., and Baltensperger, U.: Aerosol and NOx emission factors and submicron particle number size distributions in two road tunnels with different traffic regimes, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 6, 2215–2230, 2006.

% vor jede Referenz Janhäll, S., Johsson, Å. M., Molnár, P., Svensson, E. A., and Hallquist, M.: Size resolved traffic emission factors of submicrometer particles, Atmos. Environ., 38, 4331–4340, 2004.

% vor jede Referenz Kulmala, M., Laaksonen, A., and Pirjola, L.: Parameterizations for sulfuric acid/water nucleation rates, J. Geophys. Res., 103(D7), 8301–8307, 1998.

% vor jede Referenz Moussiopoulos, M., Sahm, P., Kunz, R., Vögele, T., Schneider, C., and Kessler, C.: High resolution simulations of the wind flow and the ozone formation during the Heilbronn ozone experiment, Atmos. Environ., 31(19), 3177–3186, 1997.

% vor jede Referenz Pirjola, L., Laaksonen, A., Aalto, P., and Kulmala, M.: Sulfate aerosol formation in the Arctic boundary layer, J. Geophys. Res., 103(D7), 8309–8321, 1998.

% vor jede Referenz Qin, M., Xie, P.-h., Liu, W.-q., Li, A., Dou, K., Fang, W., Liu, J.-g., and Zhang, W.-j.: Observation of atmospheric nitrous acid with DOAS in Beijing, China, J. Envrion. Sci., 18(1), 69–75, 2006.

% vor jede Referenz Rose, D., Wehner, B., Ketzel, M., Engler, C., Voigtländer, J., Tuch, T., and Wiedensohler, A.: Atmospheric number size distributions of soot particles and estimation of emission factors, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 6, 1021–1031, 2006.

% vor jede Referenz Schichtel, B. A., Husar, R. B., Falke, S. R., and Wilson, W. E.: Haze trends over the United States, 1980–1995, Atmos. Environ., 35, 5205–5210, 2001.

% vor jede Referenz Seinfeld, J. and Pandis, S.: Atmospheric chemistry and physics, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1326 pp., 1998.

% vor jede Referenz Song, Y., Zhang, Y., Xie, S., Zeng, L., Zheng, M., Salmon, L. G., Shao, M., and Slanina, S.: Source apportionment of PM$_2.5$ in Beijing by positive matrix factorization, Atmos. Environ., 40, 1526–1537, 2006.

% vor jede Referenz Tomasi, C., Vitale, V., Petkov, B., Lupi, A., and Cacciari, A.: Improved algorithm for calculations of Rayleigh-scattering optical depth in standard atmospheres, Appl. Opt., 44, 16, 3320–3341, 2005.

% vor jede Referenz Travis, D. J., Carleton, A. M., and Lauritsen, R. G.: Contrails reduce daily temperature range, Nature, 418, 601, 2002.

% vor jede Referenz Wang, Y., McElroy, M. B., Boersma, K. F., Eskes, H. J., and Veefkind, J. P.: Traffic restrictions associated with the Sino-African summit: Reductions of NOx detected from space, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L08814, doi:10.1029/2007GL029326, 2007.

% vor jede Referenz Wehner, B., Bond, T. C., Birmili, W., Bussemer, M., Heintzenberg, J., Wiedensohler, A., and Charlson, R. J.: Climate-relevant particulate emission characteristics of a coal fired heating plant, Environ. Sci. Techol., 33(21), 3881–3886, 1999.

% vor jede Referenz Wehner, B., Birmili, W., Gnauk, T., and Wiedensohler, A.: Particle number size distributions in a street canyon and their transformation into the urban background: Measurements and a simple model study, Atmos. Environ., 26(13), 2215–2223, 2002.

% vor jede Referenz Wehner, B. and Wiedensohler, A.: Long term measurements of submicrometer urban aerosols: statistical analysis for correlations with meteorological conditions and trace gases, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 3, 867–879, 2003.

% vor jede Referenz Wehner, B., Wiedensohler, A., Tuch, T. M., Wu, Z. J., Hu, M., Slanina, J., and Kiang, C. S.: Variability of the aerosol number size distribution in Beijing, China: New particle formation, dust storm, and high continental background, Geophys. Res. Lett., 31, L22108, doi:10.1029/2004GL021596, 2004.

% vor jede Referenz Wehner, B., Birmili, W., Ditas, F., Wu, Z., Hu, M., Liu, X., Mao, J., Sugimoto, N., and Wiedensohler, A.: Relationships between submicrometer particulate air pollution and air mass history in Beijing, China, 2004-2006, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 8, 6155–6168, 2008.

% vor jede Referenz Willeke, K. and Baron, P. A.: Aerosol measurement: Principles, techniques, and applications, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, USA, 1993.

% vor jede Referenz Wu, Z., Hu, M., Liu, S., Wehner, B., Bauer, S., Maßling, A., Wiedensohler, A., Petäjä, T., Maso, M. D., and Kulmala, M.: New particle formation in Beijing, China: Statistical analysis of a 1-year data set, J. Geophys. Res., 112, D09209, doi:10.1029/2006JD007406, 2007.

% vor jede Referenz Wu, Z., Hu, M., Lin, P., Liu, S., Wehner, B., and Wiedensohler, A.: Particle number size distribution in the urban atmosphere of Beijing, China, Atmos. Environ., 42, 34, 7967–7980, doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2008.06.022, 2008.

% vor jede Referenz Xia, X., Eck, T. F., Holben, B. N., Phillippe, G., and Chen, H.: Analysis of the weekly cycle of aerosol optical depth using AERONET and MODIS data, J. Geophys. Res., 113, D14217, doi:10.1029/2007JD009604, 2008.

% vor jede Referenz Xie, S. D., Liu, Z., Chen, T., and Hua, L.: Spatiotemporal variations of ambient PM$_10$ source contributions in Beijing in 2004 using positive matrix factorization, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 8, 2701–2716, 2008.

% vor jede Referenz XINHUA-NEWS: Implementation of National VI vehicle emission standard on 1 January 2008 in Beijing: http://news.xinhuanet.com/auto/2008-02/15/content_7609678.htm, 2008 (in Chinese).

% vor jede Referenz Zhang, Y. H. and Shao, M.: Air quality in Beijing and its transition from coal burning caused problems to traffic exhaust related pollution, 90th Annual Meeting of Air & Waste Management Association (97-TP67.07), Toronto, Canada, 1997.

% vor jede Referenz Zhang, Y. H. and Su, H.: Concentation and budget of HONO and its important role in atmosheric photochemistry in Beijing, Report to China National Natural Science Foundation (40675072 (D0510)), College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 40675072(D0510), 5, 2007.

% vor jede Referenz Zheng, M., Salmon, L. G., Schauer, J. J., Zeng, L., Kiang, C. S., Zhang, Y., and Cass, G. R.: Seasonal trends in PM$_2.5$ sources contributions in Beijing, China, Atmos. Environ., 39, 3967–3976, 2005.