Limin Chen

Observations of nitrous acid and its relative humidity dependence in Shanghai

Nitrous acid, HNO2, is an important precursor of OH radicals in the troposphere. Measurements of HNO2 and NO2, using differential optical absorption spectroscopy (DOAS), were performed in Shanghai, China for a period from October 22, 2004 to January 4, 2005. The mean (and median) hourly concentrations of HNO2 and NO2 during this period were 1.1 (0.7) ppb and 24 (21.4) ppb respectively. A correlation between HNO2/NO2 and PMI,( mass concentrations was obtained. This correlation suggests that significant heterogeneous chemical production of HNO2 may occur through NO2 reactions on aerosol surfaces. This hypothesis was further supported by detailed analysis of selected pollution episodes in this study. At the same time, the water dependence of HNO2 formation was studied by analysis of relative humidity (RH). It showed that the maximum HNO2/NO2 ratio was increased along with RH below 70% and inhibited at RH>70%.

Study on the Traffic Air Pollution inside and outside a Road Tunnel in Shanghai, China

To investigate the vehicle induced air pollution situations both inside and outside the tunnel, the field measurement of the pollutants concentrations and its diurnal variations was performed inside and outside the Xiangyin tunnel in Shanghai from 13:00 on April 24th to 13:00 on April 25th, 2013. The highest hourly average concentrations of pollutants were quantified that CO, NO, NO2 and NOX inside the tunnel were 13.223 mg/m3, 1.829 mg/m3, 0.291 mg/m3 and 3.029 mg/m3, respectively, while the lowest ones were 3.086 mg/m3, 0.344 mg/m3, 0.080 mg/m3 and 0.619 mg/m3. Moreover, the concentrations of pollutants were higher during the daytime, and lower at night, which is relevant to the traffic conditions inside the tunnel. Pollutants concentrations inside the tunnel were much higher than those outside the tunnel. Then in a case of slow wind, the effect of wind is much smaller than the impact of pollution sources. Additionally, the PM2.5 concentrations climbed to the peak sharply (468.45 µg/m3) during the morning rush hours. The concentrations of organic carbon (OC) and elemental carbon (EC) in PM2.5 inside the tunnel were 37.09–99.06 µg/m3 and 22.69–137.99 µg/m3, respectively. Besides, the OC/EC ratio ranged from 0.72 to 2.19 with an average value of 1.34. Compared with the results of other tunnel experiments in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, China, it could be inferred that the proportion of HDVs through the Xiangyin tunnel is relatively lower.

Evaluation and potential improvements of WRF/CMAQ in simulating multi-levels air pollution in megacity Shanghai, China

The accuracy of atmospheric numerical model is important for the prediction of urban air pollution. This study investigated and quantified the uncertainties of meteorological and air quality model during multi-levels air pollution periods. We simulated the air quality of megacity Shanghai, China with WRF/CMAQ (Weather Research and Forecasting model and Community Multiscale Air Quality model) at both non-pollution and heavy-pollution episodes in 2012. The weather prediction model failed to reproduce the surface temperature and wind speed in condition of high aerosol loading. The accuracy of the air quality model showed a clear dropping tendency from good air quality conditions to heavily polluted episodes. The absolute model bias increased significantly from light air pollution to heavy air pollution for SO2 (from 2 to 14%) and for PM10 (from 1 to 33%) in both urban and suburban sites, for CO in urban sites (from 8 to 48%) and for NO2 in suburban sites (from 1 to 58%). A test of applying the Urban Canopy Model scheme to the WRF model showed fairly good improvement on predicting the meteorology field, but less significant effect on the air pollutants (6% for SO2 and 19% for NO2 decease in model bias found only in urban sites). This study gave clear evidence to the sensitivities of the model performance on the air pollution levels. It is suggested to consider this impact as a source for model bias in the model assessment and make improvement in the model development in the future.

Developing of DOAS in China

In this paper, the developing of DOAS (Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy) in China is presented. The measurement campaigns were performed from November,2001 to February, 2002 in Shanghai and from June, 2001 to April, 2002 in AIOFM (Ahhui Institute of Optical and Fine Mechanics) Hefei respectively to determine the concentration of SO2, NO2 and O3 in ambient air. For measuring the distribution of pollutants in troposphere, a new kink of DOAS system with high spatial and temporal resolution was developed under the cooperation between German and Chinese researcher. This work was described in the latest part of this paper.