Exploring wintertime regional haze in northeast China: role of coal and biomass burning

As one of the intense anthropogenic emission regions across the relatively high-latitude ( > 40°N) areas on Earth, northeast China faces the serious problem of regional haze during the heating period of the year. Aerosols in polluted haze and haze formation in northeast China are poorly understood compared with the haze in other regions of China such as the North China Plain.

In this study, Zhang et al. (2020) integrated bulk chemical measurements with single-particle analysis to obtain morphology, size, composition, aging process, and sources of aerosol particles collected during two contrasting regional haze events (Haze-I and Haze-II) in northeast China.

This study revealed a contrasting formation mechanism of two typical haze events: Haze-I was induced by adverse meteorological conditions together with residential coal burning emissions; Haze-II was caused by agricultural biomass waste burning. In particular, we observed large numbers of tar balls as the primary brown carbon in northeast China, which should be further considered in climate models.

Figure 1. Schematic diagram of Haze-I and Haze-II formation in northeast China during winter. The major emission sources and haze formation processes are shown.

This new study of Prof. Weijun Li’s group has been published online by Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (IF=5.668). The first author of this study is Jian Zhang, a PhD student in Prof. Weijun Li’s group. This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China.

For Details: Zhang, J., Liu, L., Xu, L., Lin, Q., Zhao, H., Wang, Z., Guo, S., Hu, M., Liu, D., Shi, Z., Huang, D., Li, W., 2020. Exploring wintertime regional haze in northeast China: role of coal and biomass burning. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 20, 5355-5372.

LINK: https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/20/5355/2020/