Aerosol properties at gosan in Korea during two pollution episodes caused by contrasting weather conditions

Abstract

We analyzed aerosol optical and chemical properties over Northeast Asia for two pollution episodes caused by contrasting weather conditions, stagnant anticyclone (November, 2011) and fastmoving continental outflow associated with migratory cyclone/anticyclone (February, 2003). Pollution levels were significantly high and even comparable with heavily polluted urban cities in China and Korea even though these levels were from the episodic measurements since Gosan is an internationally well-known remote background site. Space-borne MODIS measurements clearly show that the pollution plume with high aerosol optical depth (AOD) overlaid and very slowly moved over Northeast Asia during the stagnation episode. On the other hand, a strong synoptic wind transported the plume from eastern China to its downwind regions during the continental outflow episode. The two pollution episodes showed discriminative aerosol chemical compositions associated with different source characteristics. Concentrations of nss (non-sea-salt)-sulfates and ammonium in the continental outflow episode were almost two times higher than those in the stagnation episode due to the influence of anthropogenic emissions from China. A higher fraction of nitrate, accompanied with an increase of carbonaceous species in the stagnation episode, was attributable to vehicular emissions originated from Korea.