Abstract. Haze pollution caused by PM2.5 is the largest air quality concern in China in recent years. Long-term measurements of PM2.5 and the precursors and chemical speciation are crucially important for evaluating the efficiency of emission control, understanding formation and transport of PM2.5 associated with the change of meteorology, and accessing the impact of human activities on regional climate change. Here we reported long-term continuous measurements of PM2.5, chemical components, and their precursors at a regional background station, the Station for Observing Regional Processes of the Earth System (SORPES), in Nanjing, eastern China, since 2011. We found that PM2.5 at the station has experienced a substantial decrease (−9.1 % yr−1), accompanied by even a very significant reduction of SO2 (−16.7 % yr−1), since the national “Ten Measures of Air” took action in 2013. Control of open biomass burning and fossil-fuel combustion are the two dominant factors that influence the PM2.5 reduction in early summer and winter, respectively. In the cold season (November–January), the nitrate fraction was significantly increased, especially when air masses were transported from the north. More NH3 available from a substantial reduction of SO2 and increased oxidization capacity are the main factors for the enhanced nitrate formation. The changes of year-to-year meteorology have contributed to 24 % of the PM2.5 decrease since 2013. This study highlights several important implications on air pollution control policy in China.
Abstract. In this paper, we present long-term observations of atmospheric nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and formaldehyde (HCHO) in Nanjing using a Multi-AXis Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (MAX-DOAS) instrument. Ground-based MAX-DOAS measurements were performed from April 2013 to February 2017. The MAX-DOAS measurements of NO2 and HCHO vertical column densities (VCDs) are used to validate ozone monitoring instrument (OMI) satellite observations over Nanjing. The comparison shows that the OMI observations of NO2 correlate well with the MAX-DOAS data with Pearson correlation coefficient (R) of 0.91. However, OMI observations are on average a factor of 3 lower than the MAX-DOAS measurements. Replacing the a priori NO2 profiles by the MAX-DOAS profiles in the OMI NO2 VCD retrieval would increase the OMI NO2 VCDs by ∼30 % with correlation nearly unchanged. The comparison result of MAX-DOAS and OMI observations of HCHO VCD shows a good agreement with R of 0.75 and the slope of the regression line is 0.99. An age-weighted backward-propagation approach is applied to the MAX-DOAS measurements of NO2 and HCHO to reconstruct the spatial distribution of NO2 and HCHO over the Yangtze River Delta during summer and winter time. The reconstructed NO2 fields show a distinct agreement with OMI satellite observations. However, due to the short atmospheric lifetime of HCHO, the backward-propagated HCHO data do not show a strong spatial correlation with the OMI HCHO observations. The result shows that the MAX-DOAS measurements are sensitive to the air pollution transportation in the Yangtze River Delta, indicating the air quality in Nanjing is significantly influenced by regional transportation of air pollutants. The MAX-DOAS data are also used to evaluate the effectiveness of air pollution control measures implemented during the Youth Olympic Games 2014. The MAX-DOAS data show a significant reduction of ambient aerosol, NO2 and HCHO (30 %–50 %) during the Youth Olympic Games. Our results provide a better understanding of the transportation and sources of pollutants over the Yangtze River Delta as well as the effect of emission control measures during large international events, which are important for the future design of air pollution control policies.
Abstract. Brown carbon (BrC), a certain group of organic carbon (OC) with strong absorption from the visible (VIS) to ultraviolet (UV) wavelengths, makes a considerable contribution to light absorption on both global and regional scales. A high concentration and proportion of OC has been reported in China, but studies of BrC absorption based on long-term observations are rather limited in this region. In this study, we reported 3-year results of light absorption of BrC based on continuous measurement at the Station for Observing Regional Processes of the Earth System (SORPES) in the Yangtze River Delta, China, combined with Mie theory calculation. Light absorption of BrC was obtained using an improved absorption Ångström exponent (AAE) segregation method. The AAE of non-absorbing coated black carbon (BC) at each time step is calculated based on Mie theory simulation, together with single particle soot photometer (SP2) and aethalometer observations. By using this improved method, the variation of the AAE over time is taken into consideration, making it applicable for long-term analysis. The annual average light absorption coefficient of BrC (b abs_BrC ) at 370 nm was 6.3 Mm −1 at the SORPES station. The contribution of BrC to total aerosol absorption (P BrC ) at 370 nm ranged from 10.4 to 23.9 % (10th and 90th percentiles, respectively), and reached up to ∼ 33 % in the openbiomass-burning-dominant season and winter. Both b abs_BrC and P BrC exhibited clear seasonal cycles with two peaks in later spring/early summer (May-June, b abs_BrC ∼ 6 Mm −1 , P BrC ∼ 17 %) and winter (December, b abs_BrC ∼ 15 Mm −1 , P BrC ∼ 22 %), respectively. Lagrangian modeling and the chemical signature observed at the site suggested that open biomass burning and residential coal/biofuel burning were the dominant sources influencing BrC in the two seasons, respectively.
Haematococcus pluvialis is an astaxanthin-rich microalga that can increase its astaxanthin production by salicylic acid (SA) or jasmonic acid (JA) induction. The genetic transcriptome details of astaxanthin biosynthesis were analyzed by exposing the algal cells to 25 mg/L of SA and JA for 1, 6 and 24 hours, plus to the control (no stress). Based on the RNA-seq analysis, 56,077 unigenes (51.7%) were identified with functions in response to the hormone stress. The top five identified subcategories were cell, cellular process, intracellular, catalytic activity and cytoplasm, which possessed 5600 (~9.99%), 5302 (~9.45%), 5242 (~9.35%), 4407 (~7.86%) and 4195 (~7.48%) unigenes, respectively. Furthermore, 59 unigenes were identified and assigned to 26 putative transcription factors (TFs), including 12 plant-specific TFs. They were likely associated with astaxanthin biosynthesis in Haematococcus upon SA and JA stress. In comparison, the up-regulation of differential expressed genes occurred much earlier, with higher transcript levels in the JA treatment (about 6 h later) than in the SA treatment (beyond 24 h). These results provide valuable information for directing metabolic engineering efforts to improve astaxanthin biosynthesis in H. pluvialis.
Abstract. Aerosol optical properties were measured with a seven-wavelength aethalometer and a three-wavelength nephelometer at the suburban site SORPES in Nanjing, China, in September 2013-January 2015. The aethalometer compensation parameter k, calculated with the Virkkula et al. (2007) method depended on the backscatter fraction, measured with an independent method, the integrating nephelometer. At λ = 660 nm the daily averaged compensation parameter k ≈ 0.0017 ± 0.0002 and 0.0042 ± 0.0013 when backscatter fraction at λ = 635 nm was in the ranges of 0.100 ± 0.005 and 0.160 ± 0.005, respectively. Also, the wavelength dependency of the compensation parameter depended on the backscatter fraction: when b(λ = 525 nm) was less than approximately 0.13 the compensation parameter decreased with wavelength and at larger b it increased with wavelength. This dependency has not been considered in any of the algorithms that are currently used for processing aethalometer data. The compensation parameter also depended on the single-scattering albedo ω 0 so that k decreased with increasing ω 0 . For the green light (λ = 520 nm) in the ω 0 range 0.870 ± 0.005, the average (± standard deviation) k ≈ 0.0047 ± 0.006 and in the ω 0 range 0.960 ± 0.005, k ≈ 0.0028 ± 0.0007. This difference was larger for the nearinfrared light (λ = 880 nm): in the ω 0 range 0.860 ± 0.005, k ≈ 0.0055 ± 0.0023 and in the ω 0 range 0.960 ± 0.005, k ≈ 0.0019 ± 0.0011. The negative dependence of k on ω 0 was also shown with a simple theoretical analysis.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.