The interaction between black carbon and planetary boundary layer in the Yangtze River Delta from 2015 to 2020: Why O3 didn't decline so significantly as PM2.5

Abstract

Since the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan (air clean plan) issued in 2013, air quality has been in continuous improvement. The second stage of air clean plan since 2018 was focused on O₃ controlling, but it still didn't decline so significantly as PM_2.5. This study conducted a long-term observation on black carbon (BC) and utilized the observational data of other air pollutants (PM_2.5, PM₁₀, NO₂, SO₂, CO and O₃), the meteorological elements and the vertical sounding data of PBL in Nanjing. In the daytime (08:00-20:00), PM_2.5 kept decreasing from 2015 to 2020 at the rate of 4.8 μg⋅m^-3⋅a^-1, however, BC increased at the rate of 0.6 μg⋅m^-3⋅a^-1, which has led to the continuous growth of BC/PM_2.5 (0.9%⋅a^-1). However, during this period, O₃ was relatively stable and, in 2020, it returned below its value in 2015 after slight increases in 2017 and 2018. Meanwhile, the average surface temperature had increased by around 1.0 °C during 2015-2019 at the rate of 0.3 °C⋅a^-1. Also, the average height of the inversion layer had increased significantly by 494.0 and 176.7 m at 20:00 and 08:00, whose growth ratio was up to 57% and 25%, respectively. The above observation results have formed a set of chain reactions as follows. The growth of the surface BC caused the surface temperature to rise due to the increasing heating effect of BC. The continuous growth of the surface temperature made it easier for the PBL height to develop, which led to the lift of the inversion layer in the PBL and the larger atmospheric environment capacity. Ultimately, it is conducive to the diffusion of the near surface pollutants, thus helping reduce their concentrations, which offsets the increasing tendency of O₃ and add to the decreasing trend of PM_2.5. This phenomenon is the most remarkable in summer, with the fastest increasing rate of temperature (0.8 °C⋅a^-1) and O₃ (3.9 μg⋅m^-3⋅a^-1) during 2015-2019 (excluding 2020 to erase the great effect of COVID-19 lockdown on emissions).

Keywords: Air pollutants; Black carbon; Inversion layer; PM(2.5); The yangtze river delta.