Abstract
A sampling campaign of aerosols over Urumqi from 2001–2007 and soil samples in the surrounding areas were carried out to investigate the severe air pollution in Urumqi, a typical inland city, located in the center of Asia. Urumqi is one of the heavy polluted cities in the world, as the days of haze spanned over one third of the year and accounted for 60–80% of the heating period for the past 6 years. High concentration of fine aerosols, frequent occurrence, and rapid formation of heavy haze were the three main characteristics. With comparison of the pollution elements, As, Cd, and S, and the ratio of Ca/Al in aerosols and soils in those sites located on the south of Jungger Basin as tracers, it was found that As, Cd, and S highly enriched in the aerosols over urban Urumqi were not only from the re-suspended road dust but also from the soil transported from south of the Jungger Basin. Different from the most cities in China, the high concentration of sulfate in Urumqi was partially from the primary soil dust transported from the surrounding areas. The mixing of the local anthropogenic aerosols with the soil transported from outside the city was the main source of the high sulfate concentration. Ammonium salts were higher than the summed equivalents of SO 2−4 , NO −3 , and Cl− in Urumqi and much higher than that in other Chinese cities. The total water soluble ions and the total ammonium salts were as high as 57.8% and 51.0% in PM2.5. The high concentration of soluble salts with high hygroscopicity, especially ammonium and sulfate salts, were the main factors contributing to the heavy haze over Urumqi.
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Acknowledgment
We are grateful to the sampling works at Urumqi was supported by **njian Li, Aili Maimaitiming, Tongwen Zhang, and Huaming Shang of the institute of Desert and Meteorology, CMA, Urumqi. This work was supported by the National Key Project of Basic Research of China (Grant Nos. 2006CB403704), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 20877020, 40575062, and 40599420), and Chinese Desert and Meteorology Study Foundation (Grant No. SQG2005007).
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Li, J., Zhuang, G., Huang, K. et al. The chemistry of heavy haze over Urumqi, Central Asia. J Atmos Chem 61, 57–72 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10874-009-9124-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10874-009-9124-7