Increase of Ambient PCDD/F Concentrations in Northern Taiwan during Asian Dust Storm and Winter Monsoon Episodes

Abstract

In the spring, Asian dust storms that originate in the deserts of Mongolia and China eventually reach the populated areas of East Asia. The dust storm particles usually contain diverse organic matter and nutrients that may have an adverse effect on human health. In winter, northeast monsoon episodes that originate in the mainland China not only bring cold air but also transport dust and air pollutants to Taiwan over long distances. Based on the above, the presence of persistent organic pollutants (POPs), including polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs), in the suspended particles undergoing long-range transport needs to be investigated. In this study, the atmospheric concentrations of PCDD/Fs were monitored and investigated during an Asian dust storm episode and northeast monsoon episode in northern Taiwan. The sampling results indicate that the atmospheric PCDD/Fs observed at two remote sampling sites ranged from 7.46 ± 0.7 to 37. rd December 2008, respectively. Specifically, higher levels of PCDFs (by 70%-76%) were measured in northern Taiwan during these long-range transport periods. As no specific dioxin emission sources exist within 20 km of our sampling sites, the increase in PCDD/F concentrations observed at these two remote sampling sites is likely to be related to the Asian dust storm and northeast monsoon episodes and the pollutants would seem to have come from mainland China.

Spatial and Temporal Variation of PM2.5 and Atmospheric PCDD/Fs in Northern Taiwan during Winter Monsoon and Local Pollution Episodes

“…Several days before northeastern monsoons descended on Taiwan, the prevailing winds typically blew eastward at low speeds across the island, leading to poor atmospheric dispersion and accumulation of local anthropogenic emissions because of geographical factors and the low mixing-layer height in domestic urban areas (Chi et al, 2014). Moreover, the prevailing wind in Taiwan blowing eastward in the runup to northeastern monsoons was also reported during the winters of 2005 and 2014 (Cheng et al, 2008;Chuang et al, 2016).…”

Part II: PM2.5 and Polychlorinated Dibenzo-p-dioxins and Dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs) in the Ambient Air of Northern China

“…After being emitted from combustion sources, they are distributed in both gas and particle phases in the atmosphere. Climate change and increasing climate variability have the potential to influence the emission, distribution and degradation of PCDD/Fs (Bogdal et al, 2010;Chi et al, 2014Chi et al, , 2015. Factors that have been proposed by the United Nations Environment Programme as the key ones influencing the environmental fate of transportation of PCDD/Fs include the re-evaporation of secondary sources, wind, precipitation, ocean currents, the melting of ice caps and mountains glaciers at the poles, the frequency of extreme weather events, the degradation and transportation of POPs, environmental partitioning and biotic transportation (UNEP/AMAP, 2011; Chi et al, 2016).…”

Atmospheric Deposition of Polychlorinated Dibenzo-p-dioxins and Dibenzofurans at Coastal and High Mountain Areas in Taiwan

“…Combustion processes (Correa et al, 2006;Shih et al, 2006;Chiu et al, 2011) involving chlorine containing organic matter ) such as municipal solid waste incineration (Lee et al, 2003), laboratory waste incinerators (Liao et al, 2014;Wu et al, 2014), hazardous waste incinerators , iron ore sintering plants (Fang et al, 2011), steel and cement kilns (Van Thuong et al, 2014), landfill fires (Moussiopoulos et al, 2006), vehicle tailpipe exhausts (Chuang et al, 2010), boilers , fast food restaurants , coal fire-power plants (Lin et al, 2010b), bio-mass open burning (Shih et al, 2008;Chang et al, 2013;Chang et al, 2014) and dust storms (Chi et al, 2014) have been pointed out to be among the leading primary sources of PCDD/Fs and other dioxin like compounds. The emission of PCDD/Fs from the mentioned processes can be attributed to either their presence the feedstock, or be formed from chlorine containing precursors compounds as well as be formed through the de novo mechanism at certain temperature window Fujimori et al, 2014).…”