Abstract
Air pollution is one of the main environmental problems in the metropolitan area of São Paulo (MASP) in Brazil, with frequent exceedances of air quality standards. Occasionally, the exceedance events last many days, resulting in continuous exposure to concentrations above the standards, with impacts to human health. In this air pollution long-term study, a method was developed to identify persistent exceedance events (PEE) of particulate matter (PM10) and ozone (O3) and associated surface weather patterns. Between 2005 and 2017, 119 PEE were identified, with exceedances occurring simultaneously in at least 50% of monitoring stations along 3 to 14 consecutive days. Median PM10 and O3 concentrations increased by 60% during the events. Mean fields of sea level pressure from global reanalysis data revealed the influence of high-pressure systems and pre-frontal conditions. PM10 events were frequent in austral winter and mostly driven by anomalous atmospheric circulation with a wind change to northwest. On the other hand, O3 events were common in the spring, associated with higher positive anomalies of temperature and solar radiation. Overall, results show that PEE span a regional scale, differing from ordinary exceedance events that can be driven by local conditions. Policy makers should be aware of the frequency of PEE in the development of mitigation measures against the exposure to harmful levels of air pollutants. The concept of PEE can be applied to other metropolitan areas and may support the development of data-driven air quality predictive models based on current or forecasted weather conditions.
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The research was based on air quality public data provided by CETESB (https://qualar.cetesb.sp.gov.br/), meteorological data provided by IAG/USP meteorological station (https://www.iag.usp.br/) and ERA-Interim reanalysis data (https://www.ecmwf.int/). The dataset about persistent exceedance events developed in this research is provided in a worksheet as a supplementary material.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Companhia Ambiental do Estado de São Paulo (CETESB) and the University of Sao Paulo (IAG/USP) meteorological station for providing data on pollutant concentrations and surface weather variables.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Oliveira. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Oliveira and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. Supervision and project administration were in charge of Rizzo and Drumond. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Editorial responsibility: Samareh Mirkia.
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Oliveira, M.C.Q.D., Drumond, A. & Rizzo, L.V. Air pollution persistent exceedance events in the Brazilian metropolis of Sao Paulo and associated surface weather patterns. Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol. 19, 9495–9506 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-021-03778-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-021-03778-1