Abstract
Severe haze pollution that occurred in January 2014 in Wuhan was investigated. The factors leading to Wuhan’s PM2.5 pollution and the characteristics and formation mechanism were found to be significantly different from other megacities, like Beijing. Both the growth rates and decline rates of PM2.5 concentrations in Wuhan were lower than those in Beijing, but the monthly PM2.5 value was approximately twice that in Beijing. Furthermore, the sharp increases of PM2.5 concentrations were often accompanied by strong winds. A high-precision modeling system with an online source-tagged method was established to explore the formation mechanism of five haze episodes. The long-range transport of the polluted air masses from the North China Plain (NCP) was the main factor leading to the sharp increases of PM2.5 concentrations in Wuhan, which contributed 53.4% of the monthly PM2.5 concentrations and 38.5% of polluted days. Furthermore, the change in meteorological conditions such as weakened winds and stable weather conditions led to the accumulation of air pollutants in Wuhan after the long-range transport. The contribution from Wuhan and surrounding cities to the PM2.5 concentrations was determined to be 67.4% during this period. Under the complex regional transport of pollutants from surrounding cities, the NCP, East China, and South China, the five episodes resulted in 30 haze days in Wuhan. The findings reveal important roles played by transregional and intercity transport in haze formation in Wuhan.
摘要
2014年1月, 武汉发生了持续30天的极端灰霾污染过程, PM2.5月均浓度达北京同期的2倍左右。本研究对这一时段武汉和北京两大城市PM2.5污染进行了对比分析, 发现武汉灰霾污染具有与北京完全不同的特点。北京灰霾污染前期PM2.浓度往往呈现爆发式增长, 后期在强北风作用下快速下降; 而武汉PM2.5浓度往往在强北风作用下快速增长, 后期强北风减弱或风向转换, PM2.5浓度下降, 但下降趋势缓慢, 导致灰霾污染一直持续。为了探求武汉持续灰霾污染的成因, 采用耦合了在线污染物来源追踪方法的高分辨率模拟系统开展模拟分析, 结果发现: 强北风推动下华北地区污染物跨城市群向南输送是武汉PM2.5浓度爆发性增长的主要驱动因子, 这一前期阶段平均贡献达92.3 μg m−3。而在武汉污染过程后期, 武汉及毗邻城市大气扩散条件转差, 局地污染物累积和城市群内污染传输增强, 这一阶段武汉城市群污染物排放成为首要来源, 平均贡献高达67.4%。同时在这一阶段, 华东和华南地区受本地天气形势影响分别出现系统性东风和南风, 多来源的短时输送也进一步维持武汉PM2.5的高浓度水平, 从而导致武汉发生了持续30天极端灰霾污染过程。这一结果表明武汉灰霾污染具有其独特的复杂性, 跨城市群和城市群内输送在武汉超长灰霾污染形成中共同发挥了重要作用。
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Acknowledgments
The authors express their utmost gratitude to the NCAR for providing important biomass burning emissions data (FINNv1). We also thank Professor Shaodong XIE, Peking University, and Zhichao ZHU and Peipei QIU, Wuhan Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, for providing Wuhan’s 2014 emissions data. This study was supported by the National Key R&D Program (Grant Nos. 2017YFC0212603 and 2017YFC0212604), the Chinese Academy of Sciences Strategic Priority Research Program (Grant No. XDA19040201), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41575128 and 41620104008).
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Article Highlights
• The formation mechanism of haze episodes in Wuhan during January 2014 was investigated.
• A high-precision modeling system with an online source-tagged method was employed.
• The sharp increase in the PM2.5 concentrations in Wuhan were triggered by long-range transport from the North China Plain region.
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Lu, M., Tang, X., Wang, Z. et al. Investigating the Transport Mechanism of PM2.5 Pollution during January 2014 in Wuhan, Central China. Adv. Atmos. Sci. 36, 1217–1234 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00376-019-8260-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00376-019-8260-5