Comparisons of Speciated PM-2.5 Mass at Rural and Urban New York State Locations
Abstract
The EPA Speciation Monitoring program is designed to determine the concentrations of 58 compounds contributing to the composition of ambient atmospheric particles smaller than 2.5 microns at various locations. Typically, siting criteria favor areas representative of high population exposure and relatively strong local pollution sources. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation; (NYSDEC) in conjunction with the New York PMTACS Supersite program has augmented the predominantly urban PM-2.5 speciation network with measurements at two rural monitoring sites. In addition to providing data well suited to characterizing the composition of regional PM-2.5 air quality these sites provide the opportunity to compare filter based speciation data to measurements performed with the newest continuous speciation instrumentation technologies. PM-2.5 chemical speciation samplers draw from 600 to 1000 liters of air per hour across three filters simultaneously over a 24 hour period. The three filters are subjected to specific lab analyses to determine the concentrations of targeted compounds; including metals, ions such as sulfate, nitrate, and ammonium, and elemental and organic carbon. Data from these sites are collected on a one day in three schedule and are available for a year or more from the various locations. PM-2.5 speciation data are used to determine a ranking of compounds responsible for particulate pollution in various geographical locations in New York State. This information is useful in the attribution of sources to observed PM-2.5 concentrations and in the identification of the differences and similarities of these contributions in urban versus rural environments. PM-2.5 speciation data were obtained at two rural locations, Pinnacle State Park near Corning, NY and Whiteface Mountain in the Adirondacks; and at two urban locations, Rochester, NY and New York City, NY. Comparisons of the rural and urban measurement data suggest that compounds such as sulfate have distinct contributions from long range transport, while nitrate and organic carbon compounds indicate a pattern of more local generation, consistent with their overall atmospheric lifetimes. Back trajectory analysis has been applied to show the relationship between potential source regions and specific PM-2.5 species concentrations.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2002
- Bibcode:
- 2002AGUFM.A52C0133F
- Keywords:
-
- 0305 Aerosols and particles (0345;
- 4801);
- 0322 Constituent sources and sinks;
- 0345 Pollution: urban and regional (0305);
- 0394 Instruments and techniques