TY - JOUR
T1 - Frequency and character of extreme aerosol events in the Southwestern United States
T2 - A case study analysis in Arizona
AU - Lopez, David H.
AU - Rabbani, Michael R.
AU - Crosbie, Ewan
AU - Raman, Aishwarya
AU - Arellano, Avelino F.
AU - Sorooshian, Armin
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was funded by Grant 2 P42 ES04940-11 from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Superfund Research Program, NIH and the Center for Environmentally Sustainable Mining through the TRIF Water Sustainability Program at the University of Arizona. The authors acknowledge Andrew Huerta and the UROC-PREP program in the Graduate College at the University of Arizona.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 by the authors.
PY - 2016
Y1 - 2016
N2 - This study uses more than a decade's worth of data across Arizona to characterize the spatiotemporal distribution, frequency, and source of extreme aerosol events, defined as when the concentration of a species on a particular day exceeds that of the average plus two standard deviations for that given month. Depending on which of eight sites studied, between 5% and 7% of the total days exhibited an extreme aerosol event due to either extreme levels of PM10, PM2.5, and/or fine soil. Grand Canyon exhibited the most extreme event days (120, i.e., 7% of its total days). Fine soil is the pollutant type that most frequently impacted multiple sites at once at an extreme level. PM10, PM2.5, fine soil, non-Asian dust, and Elemental Carbon extreme events occurred most frequently in August. Nearly all Asian dust extreme events occurred between March and June. Extreme Elemental Carbon events have decreased as a function of time with statistical significance, while other pollutant categories did not show any significant change. Extreme events were most frequent for the various pollutant categories on either Wednesday or Thursday, but there was no statistically significant difference in the number of events on any particular day or on weekends versus weekdays.
AB - This study uses more than a decade's worth of data across Arizona to characterize the spatiotemporal distribution, frequency, and source of extreme aerosol events, defined as when the concentration of a species on a particular day exceeds that of the average plus two standard deviations for that given month. Depending on which of eight sites studied, between 5% and 7% of the total days exhibited an extreme aerosol event due to either extreme levels of PM10, PM2.5, and/or fine soil. Grand Canyon exhibited the most extreme event days (120, i.e., 7% of its total days). Fine soil is the pollutant type that most frequently impacted multiple sites at once at an extreme level. PM10, PM2.5, fine soil, non-Asian dust, and Elemental Carbon extreme events occurred most frequently in August. Nearly all Asian dust extreme events occurred between March and June. Extreme Elemental Carbon events have decreased as a function of time with statistical significance, while other pollutant categories did not show any significant change. Extreme events were most frequent for the various pollutant categories on either Wednesday or Thursday, but there was no statistically significant difference in the number of events on any particular day or on weekends versus weekdays.
KW - Aerosol
KW - Air quality
KW - Arizona
KW - Asian dust
KW - Dust
KW - Extreme events
KW - IMPROVE
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84958964924&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.3390/atmos7010001
DO - 10.3390/atmos7010001
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84958964924
VL - 7
JO - ATMOSPHERE
JF - ATMOSPHERE
SN - 2073-4433
IS - 1
M1 - 1
ER -