TY - JOUR
T1 - Phenomenology of ultrafine particle concentrations and size distribution across urban Europe
AU - Trechera, Pedro
AU - Garcia-Marlès, Meritxell
AU - Liu, Xiansheng
AU - Reche, Cristina
AU - Pérez, Noemí
AU - Savadkoohi, Marjan
AU - Beddows, David
AU - Salma, Imre
AU - Vörösmarty, Máté
AU - Casans, Andrea
AU - Casquero-Vera, Juan Andrés
AU - Hueglin, Christoph
AU - Marchand, Nicolas
AU - Chazeau, Benjamin
AU - Gille, Grégory
AU - Kalkavouras, Panayiotis
AU - Mihalopoulos, Nikos
AU - Ondracek, Jakub
AU - Zikova, Nadia
AU - Niemi, Jarkko V.
AU - Manninen, Hanna E.
AU - Green, David C.
AU - Tremper, Anja H.
AU - Norman, Michael
AU - Vratolis, Stergios
AU - Eleftheriadis, Konstantinos
AU - Gómez-Moreno, Francisco J.
AU - Alonso-Blanco, Elisabeth
AU - Gerwig, Holger
AU - Wiedensohler, Alfred
AU - Weinhold, Kay
AU - Merkel, Maik
AU - Bastian, Susanne
AU - Petit, Jean Eudes
AU - Favez, Olivier
AU - Crumeyrolle, Suzanne
AU - Ferlay, Nicolas
AU - Martins Dos Santos, Sebastiao
AU - Putaud, Jean Philippe
AU - Timonen, Hilkka
AU - Lampilahti, Janne
AU - Asbach, Christof
AU - Wolf, Carmen
AU - Kaminski, Heinz
AU - Altug, Hicran
AU - Hoffmann, Barbara
AU - Rich, David Q.
AU - Pandolfi, Marco
AU - Harrison, Roy M.
AU - Hopke, Philip K.
AU - Petäjä, Tuukka
AU - Alastuey, Andrés
AU - Querol, Xavier
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors
PY - 2023/2
Y1 - 2023/2
N2 - The 2017–2019 hourly particle number size distributions (PNSD) from 26 sites in Europe and 1 in the US were evaluated focusing on 16 urban background (UB) and 6 traffic (TR) sites in the framework of Research Infrastructures services reinforcing air quality monitoring capacities in European URBAN & industrial areaS (RI-URBANS) project. The main objective was to describe the phenomenology of urban ultrafine particles (UFP) in Europe with a significant air quality focus. The varying lower size detection limits made it difficult to compare PN concentrations (PNC), particularly PN10-25, from different cities. PNCs follow a TR > UB > Suburban (SUB) order. PNC and Black Carbon (BC) progressively increase from Northern Europe to Southern Europe and from Western to Eastern Europe. At the UB sites, typical traffic rush hour PNC peaks are evident, many also showing midday-morning PNC peaks anti-correlated with BC. These peaks result from increased PN10-25, suggesting significant PNC contributions from nucleation, fumigation and shipping. Site types to be identified by daily and seasonal PNC and BC patterns are: (i) PNC mainly driven by traffic emissions, with marked correlations with BC on different time scales; (ii) marked midday/morning PNC peaks and a seasonal anti-correlation with PNC/BC; (iii) both traffic peaks and midday peaks without marked seasonal patterns. Groups (ii) and (iii) included cities with high insolation. PNC, especially PN25-800, was positively correlated with BC, NO2, CO and PM for several sites. The variable correlation of PNSD with different urban pollutants demonstrates that these do not reflect the variability of UFP in urban environments. Specific monitoring of PNSD is needed if nanoparticles and their associated health impacts are to be assessed. Implementation of the CEN-ACTRIS recommendations for PNSD measurements would provide comparable measurements, and measurements of <10 nm PNC are needed for full evaluation of the health effects of this size fraction.
AB - The 2017–2019 hourly particle number size distributions (PNSD) from 26 sites in Europe and 1 in the US were evaluated focusing on 16 urban background (UB) and 6 traffic (TR) sites in the framework of Research Infrastructures services reinforcing air quality monitoring capacities in European URBAN & industrial areaS (RI-URBANS) project. The main objective was to describe the phenomenology of urban ultrafine particles (UFP) in Europe with a significant air quality focus. The varying lower size detection limits made it difficult to compare PN concentrations (PNC), particularly PN10-25, from different cities. PNCs follow a TR > UB > Suburban (SUB) order. PNC and Black Carbon (BC) progressively increase from Northern Europe to Southern Europe and from Western to Eastern Europe. At the UB sites, typical traffic rush hour PNC peaks are evident, many also showing midday-morning PNC peaks anti-correlated with BC. These peaks result from increased PN10-25, suggesting significant PNC contributions from nucleation, fumigation and shipping. Site types to be identified by daily and seasonal PNC and BC patterns are: (i) PNC mainly driven by traffic emissions, with marked correlations with BC on different time scales; (ii) marked midday/morning PNC peaks and a seasonal anti-correlation with PNC/BC; (iii) both traffic peaks and midday peaks without marked seasonal patterns. Groups (ii) and (iii) included cities with high insolation. PNC, especially PN25-800, was positively correlated with BC, NO2, CO and PM for several sites. The variable correlation of PNSD with different urban pollutants demonstrates that these do not reflect the variability of UFP in urban environments. Specific monitoring of PNSD is needed if nanoparticles and their associated health impacts are to be assessed. Implementation of the CEN-ACTRIS recommendations for PNSD measurements would provide comparable measurements, and measurements of <10 nm PNC are needed for full evaluation of the health effects of this size fraction.
KW - Aerosols
KW - Air quality
KW - Atmospheric particulate matter
KW - Nanoparticles
KW - Particle number concentrations
KW - Urban environment
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85146561413
U2 - 10.1016/j.envint.2023.107744
DO - 10.1016/j.envint.2023.107744
M3 - Article
C2 - 36696793
AN - SCOPUS:85146561413
SN - 0160-4120
VL - 172
JO - Environment international
JF - Environment international
M1 - 107744
ER -
SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being
SDG 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities