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Variability of local PM10 mass concentrations in connection with blocking air circulation

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Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze the temporal variability of Particulate Matter mass concentrations in connection with air circulation, for eight rural sites situated in the Central and Eastern parts of Europe. The stations from Poland, Hungary and Romania are rural stations without sources of pollutants. The analysis covers four winters, between December 2004 and February 2008. The pollution episodes were selected to explain air circulation influence. The results show that the causes of pollution were local, due to high mean sea level pressure and the blocking, as air circulation on large scale, was dominant in the cases of enhanced pollution in the selected area.

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Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the NOAA Air Resources Laboratory (ARL) for the provision of the HYSPLIT model and READY website (http://www.ready.noaa.gov) and all those responsible for the following websites, which we used in this study: http://www.ecmwf.int/, http://www.emep.int/, http://www.wetter3.de/. The authors also acknowledge the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSD, Boulder, Colorado, USA, from their Web site for NCEP Reanalysis data (http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/).

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Correspondence to Sabina Ştefan.

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Responsible Editor: S. Trini Castelli.

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Ştefan, S., Roman, I. Variability of local PM10 mass concentrations in connection with blocking air circulation. Meteorol Atmos Phys 127, 333–343 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00703-014-0364-y

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