The MUMBA campaign: measurements of urban, marine and biogenic air

Abstract

Abstract. The Measurements of Urban, Marine and Biogenic Air (MUMBA) campaign took place in Wollongong, New South Wales (a small coastal city approximately 80 km south of Sydney, Australia), from 21st December 2012 to 15th February 2013. Like many Australian cities, Wollongong is surrounded by dense eucalyptus forest and so the urban air-shed is heavily influenced by biogenic emissions. Instruments were deployed during MUMBA to measure the gaseous and aerosol composition of the atmosphere with the aim of providing a detailed characterisation of the complex environment of the ocean/forest/urban interface that could be used to test the skill of atmospheric models. Gases measured included ozone, oxides of nitrogen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, methane and many of the most abundant volatile organic compounds. Aerosol characterisation included total particle counts above 3 nm, total cloud condensation nuclei counts; mass concentration, number concentration size distribution, aerosol chemical analyses and elemental analysis. The campaign captured varied meteorological conditions, including two extreme heat events, providing a potentially valuable test for models of future air quality in a warmer climate. There was also an episode when the site sampled clean marine air for many hours, providing a useful additional measure of background concentrations of these trace gases within this poorly sampled region of the globe. In this paper we describe the campaign, the meteorology and the resulting observations of atmospheric composition in general terms, in order to equip the reader with sufficient understanding of the Wollongong regional influences to use the MUMBA datasets as a case study for testing a chemical transport model. The data is available from PANGAEA (see https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.871982).