Detecting and Evaluating Dust‐Events in North China With Ground Air Quality Data

Abstract

We propose a dust‐event detection and tracking procedure based on air quality data from the ground monitoring network by detecting temporal and spatial change‐points in PM10 concentration. It supplements the existing remote sensing based approach with high temporal resolution and better weather adaptivity. Applications of the procedure on the labeled data showed its having high discriminating power for dust events, pollution events, and clean periods. Our study finds changing correlation patterns between PM10 and other air pollutants at the start of the dust events, which are utilized to enhance the discriminating power of the dust‐event detection procedure. The detection and tracking procedure allows the construction of transport networks of the dust‐events as well as the identification of the source regions and the transportation pattern, and assess the intensity and severity of the dust‐events in North China. Our analysis find the dust‐events contributed to 23.3%–34.6% for PM10 and 18.2–33.2% for PM2.5 in the source regions and 2.0%–7.3% and 0.8%–4.0%, respectively, in the down‐stream provinces in the spring season from 2015 to 2020.

Air pollution and its associated health risks before and after COVID-19 in Shaanxi Province, China

“…Thus, the air quality of TC, WN, XA, and XY exhibited the greatest improvements. The north and northwest of Shaanxi is Mu Us Desert, and the northern part of Shaanxi Province is the main part of the Loess Plateau in China ( Wang et al, 2022 ; Tong et al, 2022 ). The northern cities of Shaanxi (YA and YL) are heavily influenced by natural sources, especially sandstorms.…”

Impact of Sea Surface Temperature Variability at Different Ocean Basins on Dust Activities in the Gobi Desert and North China

“…The dust activities affecting North China mainly come from the Gobi Desert (Tong et al., 2022; T. G. Yuan et al., 2016; K. Zhang et al., 2005), where dust optical depth is over 0.1 (S. S. Wang et al., 2021). Considering the different underlying surface types, climate types, most‐related meteorological elements, and mechanisms of sand emission in the Gobi Desert and transport in North China (Merrison, 2012), we separately consider the dust source area and dust transport area in this study by defining the dust source area that primarily lies in the central part of the Gobi Desert (37°N‐48°N, 95°E−110°E) and the dust transport area that covers North China (35°N‐45°N, 110°E‐125°E).…”

“…The dust activities affecting North China mainly come from the Gobi Desert (Tong et al, 2022;T. G. Yuan et al, 2016;K.…”

Evaluation and Projection of Gale Events in North China

“…Therefore, North China is the largest agricultural region in China, accounting for more than 60% of wheat and 30% of maize yields [22,23]. Meanwhile, North China is an important transportation and wind farm hub [24] but has suffered from severe air pollution in recent years, posing a serious threat to human health [25][26][27]. Therefore, gale events are an important weather extreme in North China, influencing agriculture, aviation, energy, and air quality.…”