Estimation of PM 10 concentrations over Seoul using multiple empirical models with AERONET and MODIS data collected during the DRAGON-Asia campaign

• Published in: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
• Main Authors: S. Seo, J. Kim, H. Lee, U. Jeong, W. Kim, B. N. Holben, S.-W. Kim, C. H. Song, J. H. Lim
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Copernicus Publications 2015
• Subjects: Physics; QC1-999; Chemistry; QD1-999; Aerosol Robotic Network
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-319-2015; https://doaj.org/article/387f014c48934d7386c332984613c587

The performance of various empirical linear models to estimate the concentrations of surface-level particulate matter with a diameter less than 10 μm (PM 10 ) was evaluated using Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) sun photometer and Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data collected in Seoul during the Distributed Regional Aerosol Gridded Observation Network (DRAGON)-Asia campaign from March to May 2012. An observed relationship between the PM 10 concentration and the aerosol optical depth (AOD) was accounted for by several parameters in the empirical models, including boundary layer height (BLH), relative humidity (RH), and effective radius of the aerosol size distribution ( R eff ), which was used here for the first time in empirical modeling. Among various empirical models, the model which incorporates both BLH and R eff showed the highest correlation, which indicates the strong influence of BLH and R eff on the PM 10 estimations. Meanwhile, the effect of RH on the relationship between AOD and PM 10 appeared to be negligible during the campaign period (spring), when RH is generally low in northeast Asia. A large spatial dependency of the empirical model performance was found by categorizing the locations of the collected data into three different site types, which varied in terms of the distances between instruments and source locations. When both AERONET and MODIS data sets were used in the PM 10 estimation, the highest correlations between measured and estimated values ( R = 0.76 and 0.76 using AERONET and MODIS data, respectively) were found for the residential area (RA) site type, while the poorest correlations ( R = 0.61 and 0.68 using AERONET and MODIS data, respectively) were found for the near-source (NS) site type. Significant seasonal variations of empirical model performances for PM 10 estimation were found using the data collected at Yonsei University (one of the DRAGON campaign sites) over a period of 17 months including the DRAGON campaign period. The best correlation between ...