Discerning Influences

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Discerning Influences

• Meteorology explore the affect of
  meteorological conditions on PM concentrations
  and composition.
• Emissions explore the affect of emissions on PM
  concentrations and composition.
• Inter-pollutant relationships explore the
  relationships among PM components.
• Natural Events explore the affect of natural
  events (e.g., dust storms, fires) on PM
  concentrations.

Key reference
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Emissions
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Meteorology
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Formation and Removal
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Inter-pollutant Relationships
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Natural PM Events Dust and Smoke

• Dust storms and forest fires are major PM events
  that occur several times a year over different
  parts of the US.
• Many of these events originate outside the US,
  e.g. dust from Sahara and the Asian desserts and
  smoke from forest fires in Central America and
  Canada.
• Exceedances of the NAAQS caused by dust and smoke
  events are uncontrollable acts of God.
  Nevertheless, states are required to provide
  evidence that such events (outside their
  jurisdiction) have occurred.

Key reference Capita
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Natural PM Events

• For this reason, control agencies need to be able
  to detect and document the impact of such events
  on their control region. The existing tools for
  such documentation are poorly developed.
• The natural PM events are illustrated by two
  extreme examples Asian dust impacting on the
  West Coast and the Central American forest fire
  smoke impacting the Eastern US.

Key reference Capita
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Smoke from C. American Forest Fires
SeaWiFS View of the Smoke
GOES 8 View of the Smoke

• During a ten-day period, May 7-17, 1998, smoke
  from fires in Central America drifted northward
  into USA and Canada.
• The smoke caused exceedances of the PM standard,
  health alerts, and impairment of air traffic, as
  well as major reductions of visual range.
• It has been argued that some ozone exceedances in
  the Eastern US may have been due to ozone
  generated by the forest fire smoke.

Key reference Capita
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PM10 over the Eastern U.S. during the smoke event
24-hr PM10 concentrations in ?g/m3 are shown for
several cities. The likely smoke impact on these
cities is highlighted.
The vertical line at in each figure represents.
Key reference Capita
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The Asian Dust Event of April 1998

• On April 15th, 1998 an unusually intense dust
  storm began in the western Chinese Province of
  Xinjiang, just in time for the east Asian dust
  season.
• By April 20, the dust front covered a 1000 mile
  stretch on the east coast of China and within
  five days it moved across the Pacific. It reached
  the West Coast by April 25.

Key reference Capita
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Asian Dust over the West Coast

• In Vancouver and in Washington State the PM10 and
  PM2.5 concentrations reached 100 and 40 ?g/m3,
  respectively.
• Based on public complaints and monitoring data,
  the State of Washington issued a ban on open
  burning on April 29. Thus, a dust cloud from
  another country impacted activity in the US.

Key reference Capita
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Methods and Tools
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Decision Matrix for Spatial and Temporal Analyses
Decision matrix to be used to select example
projects that will illustrate how others have
explored the characterization of PM. To use the
matrix, find your technical topic area at the
left. Follow this line across to see which
example projects illustrate analyses pertaining
to the topic area. For each of these projects,
go to the next page to see which data and data
analysis tools were used.
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Decision Matrix for Spatial and Temporal Analyses
For each of the projects that are of interest to
you, follow down the column to see which data and
data analysis tools were used.
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References