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Effects of Local Meteorology and Emissions on Winter PM2.5 Variability in Fresno

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Submitted:

14 January 2020

Posted:

15 January 2020

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Abstract
The mass composition of Particulate Matter (PM) with an aerodynamic diameter of 2.5 microns (PM2.5) in San Joaquin Valley (SJV) is dominated by ammonium nitrate (NH4NO3) which is a secondary pollutant. The goal of this research was the investigation of the relationship between emissions, meteorology and PM2.5 concentrations in Fresno for the winter season. It was found that the location of sites near emission sources such as freeways compared with residential sites strongly affected measured PM2.5 concentrations. It was found that although long-term trends showed declines in both emissions and PM2.5 concentrations there was substantial variability between the years in the PM2.5/emissions relationship. Much of the yearly variation in the relationship between emissions and PM2.5 concentrations can be attributed to yearly variations in weather, such as atmospheric stability, precipitation frequency and average wind speed. There are moderate correlations between PM2.5 concentrations and temperature differences between nearby surface stations at varying elevations which explains some of the daily and seasonal variation in PM2.5. Occurrence of precipitation was related to low PM¬2.5 although the higher wind speeds and lower atmospheric stability associated with precipitation likely explain some of the low PM2.5 as well as washout of PM.
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Subject: Environmental and Earth Sciences  -   Atmospheric Science and Meteorology
Copyright: This open access article is published under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license, which permit the free download, distribution, and reuse, provided that the author and preprint are cited in any reuse.
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