The contribution of wood burning and other pollution sources to wintertime organic aerosol levels in two Greek cities

Florou, Kalliopi; Papanastasiou, Dimitrios K.; Pikridas, Michael; Kaltsonoudis, Christos; Louvaris, Evangelos; Gkatzelis, Georgios I.; Patoulias, David; Mihalopoulos, Nikolaos; Pandis, Spyros Ν.

doi:10.5194/acp-17-3145-2017

Cited by 90 publications

(79 citation statements)

References 99 publications

(126 reference statements)

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“…The winter stable atmospheric conditions in conjunction with the seasonal decrease of the boundary-layer height (low wind speeds, temperature inversions, and low-intensity solar radiation) could further limit the dispersion of pollutants. High levels of PM mass during winter due to wood burning have also been observed in prior studies in the two largest urban metropolitan cities in Greece, Athens and Thessaloniki (e.g., Saffari et al, 2013;Florou et al, 2017;Gratsea et al, 2017).…”

Section: Temporal Variability Of Winter Mass and Aerosolsupporting

confidence: 72%

Multi-year chemical composition of the fine-aerosol fraction in Athens, Greece, with emphasis on the contribution of residential heating in wintertime

et al. 2018

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Abstract. In an attempt to take effective action towards mitigating pollution episodes in Athens, precise knowledge of PM2.5 composition and its sources is a prerequisite. Thus, a 2-year chemical composition dataset from aerosol samples collected in an urban background site in central Athens from December 2013 to March 2016 has been obtained and a positive matrix factorization (PMF) was applied in order to identify and apportion fine aerosols to their sources. A total of 850 aerosol samples were collected on a 12 to 24 h basis and analyzed for major ions, trace elements, and organic and elemental carbon, allowing us to further assess the impact of residential heating as a source of air pollution over Athens. The ionic and carbonaceous components were found to constitute the major fraction of the PM2.5 aerosol mass. The annual contribution of the ion mass (IM), particulate organic mass (POM), dust, elemental carbon (EC), and sea salt (SS) was calculated at 31 %, 38 %, 18 %, 8 %, and 3 %, respectively, and exhibited considerable seasonal variation. In winter, the share of IM was estimated down to 23 %, with POM + EC being the dominant component accounting for 52 % of the PM2.5 mass, while in summer, IM (42 %) and carbonaceous aerosols (41 %) contributed almost equally. Results from samples collected on a 12 h basis (day and night) during the three intensive winter campaigns indicated the impact of heating on the levels of a series of compounds. Indeed, PM2.5, EC, POM, NO3-, C2O42-, non sea salt (nss) K+ and selected trace metals including Cd and Pb were increased by up to a factor of 4 in the night compared to the day, highlighting the importance of heating on air quality in Athens. Furthermore, in order to better characterize wintertime aerosol sources and quantify the impact of biomass burning on PM2.5 levels, source apportionment was performed. The data can be interpreted on the basis of six sources, namely biomass burning (31 %), vehicular emissions (19 %), heavy oil combustion (7 %), regional secondary (21 %), marine aerosols (9 %), and dust particles (8 %). Regarding night-to-day patterns their contributions shifted from 19 %, 19 %, 8 %, 31 %, 12 %, and 10 % of the PM2.5 mass during day to 39 %, 19 %, 6 %, 14 %, 7 %, and 7 % during the night, underlining the significance of biomass burning as the main contributor to fine particle levels during nighttime in winter.

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Section: Temporal Variability Of Winter Mass and Aerosolsupporting

confidence: 72%

Multi-year chemical composition of the fine-aerosol fraction in Athens, Greece, with emphasis on the contribution of residential heating in wintertime

et al. 2018

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“…The contribution of f 60 to the different OA components of each campaign is represented in Fig. 7 by points in the f 44 vs. f 60 space (Cubison et al, 2011) together with those of some references from previous studies Ng et al, 2011;Mohr et al, 2012;Saarikoski et al, 2012;Crippa et al, 2014;Florou et al, 2017). The background level indicating no influence of biomass burning is represented in Fig.…”

Section: Biomass Burning Influence On Soamentioning

confidence: 92%

The impact of biomass burning and aqueous-phase processing on air quality: a multi-year source apportionment study in the Po Valley, Italy

et al. 2020

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The Po Valley (Italy) is a well-known air quality hotspot characterized by particulate matter (PM) levels well above the limit set by the European Air Quality Directive and by the World Health Organization, especially during the colder season. In the framework of Emilia-Romagna regional project "Supersito", the southern Po Valley submicron aerosol chemical composition was characterized by means of high-resolution aerosol mass spectroscopy (HR-AMS) with the specific aim of organic aerosol (OA) characterization and source apportionment. Eight intensive observation periods (IOPs) were carried out over 4 years (from 2011 to 2014) at two different sites (Bologna, BO, urban background, and San Pietro Capofiume, SPC, rural background), to characterize the spatial variability and seasonality of the OA sources, with a special focus on the cold season.On the multi-year basis of the study, the AMS observations show that OA accounts for averages of 45 ± 8 % (ranging from 33 % to 58 %) and 46 ± 7 % (ranging from 36 % to 50 %) of the total non-refractory submicron particle mass (PM 1 -NR) at the urban and rural sites, respectively. Primary organic aerosol (POA) comprises biomass burning (23±13 % of OA) and fossil fuel (12±7 %) contributions with a marked seasonality in concentration. As expected, the biomass burning contribution to POA is more significant at the rural site (urban / rural concentration ratio of 0.67), but it is also an important source of POA at the urban site during the cold season, with contributions ranging from 14 % to 38 % of the total OA mass.Secondary organic aerosol (SOA) contributes to OA mass to a much larger extent than POA at both sites throughout the year (69 ± 16 % and 83 ± 16 % at the urban and rural sites, respectively), with important implications for public health. Within the secondary fraction of OA, the measurements highlight the importance of biomass burning aging products during the cold season, even at the urban background site. This biomass burning SOA fraction represents 14 %-44 % of the total OA mass in the cold season, indicating that in this region a major contribution of combustion sources to PM mass is mediated by environmental conditions and atmospheric reactivity.Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. 1234M. Paglione et al.: Impact of biomass burning and aqueous-phase processing on air quality Among the environmental factors controlling the formation of SOA in the Po Valley, the availability of liquid water in the aerosol was shown to play a key role in the cold season. We estimate that the organic fraction originating from aqueous reactions of biomass burning products ("bb-aqSOA") represents 21 % (14 %-28 %) and 25 % (14 %-35 %) of the total OA mass and 44 % (32 %-56 %) and 61 % (21 %-100 %) of the SOA mass at the urban and rural sites, respectively.

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“…For the same period the cooking-related factor represented 85 % of the organic aerosol (17.5 µg m −3 ), while for the day before and the day after the COA factor represented only 5 % of the total OA. From various studies that were conducted in Greek cities, COA appears to be 15-20 % of the OA (Kostenidou et al, 2015;Florou et al, 2017). The mass spectrum of the COA along with the rest of the factors obtained by the PMF analysis is shown in Fig.…”

Section: Ambient Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In contrast, the second COA factor did not correlate with primary tracers. Kostenidou et al (2015) reported an HOA-2 factor for the summer measurements in Athens and Patras, Greece, that appeared to be associated with cooking but was quite different from the COA factor identified in winter in the same areas by Florou et al (2017). The reasons for the differences of the COA factor spectra even when the cooking practices are the same in the two seasons were not clear.…”

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confidence: 96%

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Characterization of fresh and aged organic aerosol emissions from meat charbroiling

Kaltsonoudis¹,

Kostenidou²,

Louvaris³

et al. 2017

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

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Abstract. Cooking emissions can be a significant source of fine particulate matter in urban areas. In this study the aerosol-and gas-phase emissions from meat charbroiling were characterized. Greek souvlakia with pork were cooked using a commercial charbroiler and a fraction of the emissions were introduced into a smog chamber where after a characterization phase they were exposed to UV illumination and oxidants. The particulate and gas phases were characterized by a high-resolution time-of-flight aerosol mass spectrometer (HR-ToF-AMS) and a proton-transfer-reaction mass spectrometer (PTR-MS) correspondingly. More than 99 % of the aerosol emitted was composed of organic compounds, while black carbon (BC) contributed 0.3 % and the inorganic species less than 0.5 % of the total aerosol mass. The initial O : C ratio was approximately 0.09 and increased up to 0.30 after a few hours of chemical aging (exposures of 10 10 molecules cm −3 s for OH and 100 ppb h for ozone). The initial and aged AMS spectra differed considerably (θ = 27 • ). Ambient measurements were also conducted during Fat Thursday in Patras, Greece, when traditionally meat is charbroiled everywhere in the city. Positive matrix factorization (PMF) revealed that cooking organic aerosol (COA) reached up to 85 % of the total OA from 10:00 to 12:00 LST that day. The ambient COA factor in two major Greek cities had a mass spectrum during spring and summer similar to the aged meat charbroiling emissions. In contrast, the ambient COA factor during winter resembled strongly the fresh laboratory meat charbroiling emissions.

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The contribution of wood burning and other pollution sources to wintertime organic aerosol levels in two Greek cities

Cited by 90 publications

References 99 publications

Multi-year chemical composition of the fine-aerosol fraction in Athens, Greece, with emphasis on the contribution of residential heating in wintertime

Multi-year chemical composition of the fine-aerosol fraction in Athens, Greece, with emphasis on the contribution of residential heating in wintertime

The impact of biomass burning and aqueous-phase processing on air quality: a multi-year source apportionment study in the Po Valley, Italy

Characterization of fresh and aged organic aerosol emissions from meat charbroiling

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