Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions
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10.5194/acpd-7-14265-2007
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/7/14265/2007/
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/7/14265/2007/acpd-7-14265-2007.html
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/7/14265/2007/acpd-7-14265-2007.pdf
14265
14294
2007-10-08
Black carbon concentration trends in Helsinki during 1996–2005
L. Järvi
leena.jarvi@helsinki.fi
H. Junninen
A. Karppinen
R. Hillamo
A. Virkkula
T. Mäkelä
T. Pakkanen
M. Kulmala
Department of Physical Sciences, University of Helsinki, P. O. Box 64, 00014, University of Helsinki, Finland
Finnisn Meteorological Institute, Erik Palmenin aukio 1, 00560 Helsinki, Finland
The black carbon (BC) concentration trends were studied during ten years in
Helsinki, Finland. Measurements were made in three campaigns between 1996
and 2005 at an urban area locating two kilometres from the centre of
Helsinki. The first campaign was from November 1996 to June 1997, the second
from September 2000 to May 2001 and the third from March 2004 to October
2005. In this study, only data from winter and spring months was analysed.
The effect of traffic and meteorological variables on the measured BC
concentrations was studied by means of a multiple regression analysis, where
the meteorological data was obtained from a meteorological pre-processing
model (MPP-FMI).
<br></br>
During the ten years, the campaign median BC concentrations were found to
decrease slightly from 1.11 to 1.00 μg m<sup>−3</sup>. The lowest campaign
median concentration (0.93 μg m<sup>−3</sup>) was measured during the second
campaign in 2000–2001, when also the lowest traffic rates were measured.
The strongest decrease between campaigns 1 and 3 was observed during weekday
daytimes, when the traffic rates are highest. The variables affecting the
measured BC concentrations most were traffic, wind speed and mixing height.
On weekdays, traffic had clearly the most important influence and on
weekends the effect of wind speed diluted the effect of traffic. The
affecting variables and their influence on the BC concentration were similar
in winter and spring. The separate examination of the three campaigns showed
that the effect of traffic on the BC concentrations had decreased during the
studied years. This reduction was caused by cleaner emissions from vehicles,
since between years 1996 and 2005 the traffic rates had increased. A rough
estimate gave that vehicle number-scaled BC mass concentrations have
decreased from 0.0028 to 0.0020 μg m<sup>−3</sup> between campaigns 1 and 3.
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