One decade of parallel fine (PM<sub>2.5</sub>) and coarse (PM<sub>10</sub>–PM<sub>2.5</sub>) particulate matter measurements in Europe: trends and variability

Abstract

Abstract. The trends and variability of PM10, PM2.5 and PMcoarse concentrations at seven urban and rural background stations in five European countries for the period between 1998 and 2010 were investigated. Collocated or nearby PM measurements and meteorological observations were used in order to construct Generalized Additive Models, which model the effect of each meteorological variable on PM concentrations. In agreement with previous findings, the most important meteorological variables affecting PM concentrations were wind speed, wind direction, boundary layer depth, precipitation, temperature and number of consecutive days with synoptic weather patterns that favor high PM concentrations. Temperature has a negative relationship to PM2.5 concentrations for low temperatures and a positive relationship for high temperatures. The stationary point of this relationship varies between 5 and 15 °C depending on the station. PMcoarse concentrations increase for increasing temperatures almost throughout the temperature range. Wind speed has a monotonic relationship to PM2.5 except for one station, which exhibits a stationary point. Considering PMcoarse, concentrations tend to increase or stabilize for large wind speeds at most stations. It was also observed that at all stations except one, higher PM2.5 concentrations occurred for east wind direction, compared to west wind direction. Meteorologically adjusted PM time series were produced by removing most of the PM variability due to meteorology. It was found that PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations decrease at most stations. The average trends of the raw and meteorologically adjusted data are −0.4 μg m−3 yr−1 for PM10 and PM2.5 size fractions. PMcoarse have much smaller trends and after averaging over all stations, no significant trend was detected at the 95% level of confidence. It is suggested that decreasing PMcoarse in addition to PM2.5 can result in a faster decrease of PM10 in the future. The trends of the 90th quantile of PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations were examined by quantile regression in order to detect long term changes in the occurrence of very large PM concentrations. The meteorologically adjusted trends of the 90th quantile were significantly larger (as an absolute value) on average over all stations (−0.6 μg m−3 yr−1).

Relationship between Health Status and Recycling Rates: Evidence from Great Britain

“…The correlation between SO2 and wind speed is negative. On the other hand, as it was expected, the relationship between SO2 and temperature is positive (Barmpadimos et al, 2012;Lecoeur et al, 2012). Similarly, the relationship between recycling rates and temperature is negative, while the association of recycling rates and wind speed is positive.…”

Teleworking Effect on Traffic and Air Pollution

“…A similar interpretation, can also be given for the temperature, as decreases in temperature, which may be associated with cold weather, high wind speed or with high levels of rainfall, lead to traffic reduction and thus to air quality improvement. On the other hand, temperature, may increase pollution, especially, for O 3 , since is formed under sunlight, associated with high levels of solar radiation and temperature (Brook et al, 1993;Tai et al, 2010;Han et al, 2011;Barmpadimos et al, 2012;Kim et al, 2014;Zhang et al, 2015). However, the coefficient of the average temperature was found significant and positive only in the case of CO and O 3 .…”

“…In a study by Rosenfeld et al (2008) pollution may increase or decrease precipitation depending on other environmental factors, indicating that the relationship is not still clear. Overall, a positive relation between maximum and average temperature and air pollution is documented in earlier studies, while a negative relationship between minimum temperature and wind speed is found (Roberts, 2004;Tai et al, 2010Tai et al, , 2012Barmpadimos et al, 2012;Lecoeur et al, 2012;Zhou et al, 2014;Price et al, 2014).…”

“…This is explained by the fact that extreme high temperature increases the air pollution levels (Roberts, 2004;Tai et al, 2010Tai et al, , 2012Barmpadimos et al, 2012;Lecoeur et al, 2012). Similarly, the negative relationship between the air pollutants and precipitation, except for O 3 , is owned to the fact that rainfall is able to absorb them in the air so they are washed out of the air and then they fall to the ground.…”

“…Another set of significant factors for both traffic and air quality is the weather conditions, such as the minimum, maximum and average temperature, precipitation and wind speed. Earlier research studies show that weather conditions are significantly associated with the air pollution (Roberts, 2004;Tai et al, 2010Tai et al, , 2012Barmpadimos et al, 2012;Lecoeur et al, 2012). In this study we examine the five most critical air pollutants; ground level ozone (O 3 ), sulphur dioxide (SO 2 ), Nitrogen Dioxide (NO 2 ), Carbon Monoxide (CO) and Particulate Matter of 10 micrometres or less in size (PM 10 ).…”