The spatio-temporal evolution of black carbon in the North-West European ‘air pollution hotspot’

Wyche, Kevin; Cordell, Rebecca; Smallbone, Kirsty; Lyons, Peter; Hama, Sarkawt; Monks, P. S.; Staelens, Jeroen; Hofman, Jelle; Stroobants, Christophe; Roekens, Edward; Kos, G.P.A.; Weijers, E.P.; Panteliadis, P.; Dijkema, Marieke

doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2020.117874

Cited by 18 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 85 publications

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“…In summary, existing studies mostly focus on single air pollutants or the spatialtemporal characteristics of multiple air pollutants in a single year, and there are few comprehensive studies that cover multiple air pollutants over a long period [19,39]. In recent years, most of the relevant studies have focused on PM 2.5 , with few providing a comparative analysis of the spatial-temporal patterns of multiple air pollutants and their factors [40,41].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Has Industrial Upgrading Improved Air Pollution?—Evidence from China’s Digital Economy

Wang

et al. 2022

Sustainability

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Air pollution has seriously hindered China’s sustainable development. The impact mechanism of industrial upgrading on air pollution is still unclear, given the rapid digital economy. It is necessary to analyze the impact of industrial structure upgrading on air pollution through the digital economy. To investigate the impact of industrial upgrading and the digital economy on air pollution, this paper selected the industrial advanced index and the digital economy index to construct a panel regression model to explore the improvement effect of industrial upgrading on air pollution and selected China’s three typical areas to construct a zonal regression model. The concentrations of air pollutants showed a downward trend during 2013–2020. Among them, the SO2 concentration decreased by 63%, which is lower than the PM2.5 and NO2 concentrations. The spatial pattern of air pollutants is heavier in the north than in the south and heavier in the east than in the west, with the North China Plain being the center of gravity. These air pollutants have significant spatial spillover effects, while local spatial correlation is dominated by high-high and low-low clustering. Industrial upgrading has a stronger suppressive effect on the PM2.5 concentration than the suppressive effect on the SO2 and NO2 concentrations, while the digital economy has a stronger improvement effect on the SO2 concentration than its improvement effect on the PM2.5 and NO2 concentrations. Industrial upgrading has a stronger improvement effect on air pollution in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration than in Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei and its surrounding areas, while the improvement in air pollution attributable to the digital economy in Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei and its surrounding areas is stronger than in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration. There are significant differences in the effects of industrial upgrading and the digital economy on the various types of air pollutants.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Has Industrial Upgrading Improved Air Pollution?—Evidence from China’s Digital Economy

Wang

et al. 2022

Sustainability

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“…Black carbon (BC) is considered to be a fine carbonaceous particulate matter (PM2.5) and occurs in the exhaust of the diesel-engine vehicles due to the incomplete combustion of fossil fuel. It is also produced from non-fossil fuels, such as biomass combustion [43]. It is a significant source of climate change.…”

Section: Greenhouse Gases and Air Pollutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate Change during the Third Millennium—The Gulf Cooperation Council Countries

Hereher

2022

Sustainability

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The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is a union occurring in the arid subtropical belt of the world. Contemporary climate change is a serious environmental issue at the regional and global levels. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the changes and trends in the regional climate in the GCC countries in terms of the land surface temperatures and surface anomalies, precipitation, and sea surface temperatures over the first two decades of this millennium. Research data exclusively relied on satellite remote sensing. Spatial, statistical, and cartographic analyses were performed to extract, manipulate, and display thematic maps reflecting the changes and trends of the regional climate. The results showed that notable climate changes were obvious and frequent throughout the GCC countries, with symptoms influencing the atmosphere, lithosphere, and the hydrosphere of the region. However, a prominent gradient in the severity of climate change occurred from north to south. Remarkably, serious impacts were observed in Kuwait and eastern Saudi Arabia, while the least effects were recorded in Oman. The study denotes the competence of remote sensing for monitoring regional climate change.

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“…Wenig et al, 2003;Liu et al, 2016), owing to the proximity of these particular receptor sites on the south coast of the UK to mainland Europe, it is possible that transboundary dispersion and transport of emissions from the heavily polluted regions of the North West of the continent (e.g. Hofman et al, 2016;Cordell et al, 2016;Wyche et al, 2020) had some degree of influence on the de-weathered NO 2 concentrations at these sites, despite a reduction in local emissions sources as a result of the UK lockdown.…”

Section: Changes Observed By Ambient Monitoring Networkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changes in ambient air quality and atmospheric composition and reactivity in the South East of the UK as a result of the COVID-19 lockdown

Gregg¹,

Wyche

Nichols³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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COVID-19 required governments across the globe put into place a range of measures which resulted in many industries suspending operations and most citizens (i.e., non &#8216;key-workers&#8217;) staying in their homes. As such, anthropogenic activity around the globe decreased rapidly, to such an extent that emissions of air pollutants began to decline dramatically, with this period now being referred to as an &#8216;anthropause&#8217;. In the early stages of the pandemic, remote sensing data from satellites indicated that nitrogen dioxide (NO&#8322;) concentrations had fallen by as much as 30% across China and by as much as 50% across areas of central Europe. Early work using in-situ measurements confirmed these findings, with studies from China, Korea, India, the USA and Europe all reporting decreases in ambient NOx concentrations. The UK government advised that the general population should avoid &#8216;non-essential&#8217; travel and social contact, on 16th March 2020. &#160;Subsequently, on 23rd March 2020, the government announced a UK-wide partial &#8216;lockdown&#8217;, to contain the spread of the virus.&#160;In this work, we combine findings from the University of Brighton&#8217;s Brighton Atmospheric Observatory and the ESA's Sentinel-5P satellite, to investigate changes in tropospheric Nitrogen Dioxide concentrations in the South East of the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic. BAO comprises a climate controlled, clean laboratory and analytical instruments for making detailed, real-time measurements of tropospheric composition, and is situated in a suburban background environment, roughly 5 km from Brighton city centre.&#160;Maps showing regional daily average NO&#8322; concentrations as recorded by TROPOMI were created over (a) the period 25/03/2019&#8211;22/04/2019 (i.e. the pre-pandemic baseline) and (b) 23/03/2020&#8211;20/04/2020 (i.e. post-implementation of lockdown restrictions). TROPOMI measurements were compared to measurements made on the ground using a long-path DOAS (total path length 300m) for the same time periods. The data confirms findings from analysis of in-situ monitor observations made by the Sussex-Air Network and DEFRA Automatic Urban and Rural Network (AURN), extending the reach of the data capture to the entire South East of the UK on a 7 &#215; 7 km resolution scale. In-line with the in-situ monitors, TROPOMI measured a decrease in the concentrations of NO2 across the entire region during the lockdown, with the regional average value falling by 33%, from 4.9 &#215; 10^16 to 3.3 &#215; 10^16 molec m^-2. The largest changes in NO2 were observed in the centre of the region, in the areas surrounding London and at certain coastal locations. &#160;TROPOMI measured NO2 values across Brighton and Hove during the 2020 lockdown period to be 59% of those measured over roughly the same time period the previous year (with mean values falling from 4.4 &#215; 10^16 to 2.9 &#215; 10^16 molecule m^-2), comparing favourably with DOAS, which recorded NO&#8322; values that were ~64% of those measured during the previous two years over roughly the same time period. &#160;The methodology is also extended to London, Birmingham and Manchester, the 1st, 2nd and 6th largest cities within the UK.&#160;

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The spatio-temporal evolution of black carbon in the North-West European ‘air pollution hotspot’

Cited by 18 publications

References 85 publications

Has Industrial Upgrading Improved Air Pollution?—Evidence from China’s Digital Economy

Has Industrial Upgrading Improved Air Pollution?—Evidence from China’s Digital Economy

Climate Change during the Third Millennium—The Gulf Cooperation Council Countries

Changes in ambient air quality and atmospheric composition and reactivity in the South East of the UK as a result of the COVID-19 lockdown

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