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. 2022 Aug:166:107325.
doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2022.107325. Epub 2022 May 30.

European aerosol phenomenology - 8: Harmonised source apportionment of organic aerosol using 22 Year-long ACSM/AMS datasets

Gang Chen  1 , Francesco Canonaco  2 , Anna Tobler  2 , Wenche Aas  3 , Andres Alastuey  4 , James Allan  5 , Samira Atabakhsh  6 , Minna Aurela  7 , Urs Baltensperger  1 , Aikaterini Bougiatioti  8 , Joel F De Brito  9 , Darius Ceburnis  10 , Benjamin Chazeau  11 , Hasna Chebaicheb  12 , Kaspar R Daellenbach  1 , Mikael Ehn  13 , Imad El Haddad  1 , Konstantinos Eleftheriadis  14 , Olivier Favez  15 , Harald Flentje  16 , Anna Font  17 , Kirsten Fossum  10 , Evelyn Freney  18 , Maria Gini  14 , David C Green  19 , Liine Heikkinen  13 , Hartmut Herrmann  6 , Athina-Cerise Kalogridis  14 , Hannes Keernik  20 , Radek Lhotka  21 , Chunshui Lin  10 , Chris Lunder  3 , Marek Maasikmets  22 , Manousos I Manousakas  1 , Nicolas Marchand  23 , Cristina Marin  24 , Luminita Marmureanu  25 , Nikolaos Mihalopoulos  8 , Griša Močnik  26 , Jaroslaw Nęcki  27 , Colin O'Dowd  10 , Jurgita Ovadnevaite  10 , Thomas Peter  28 , Jean-Eudes Petit  29 , Michael Pikridas  30 , Stephen Matthew Platt  3 , Petra Pokorná  31 , Laurent Poulain  6 , Max Priestman  17 , Véronique Riffault  9 , Matteo Rinaldi  32 , Kazimierz Różański  27 , Jaroslav Schwarz  31 , Jean Sciare  30 , Leïla Simon  33 , Alicja Skiba  27 , Jay G Slowik  1 , Yulia Sosedova  34 , Iasonas Stavroulas  35 , Katarzyna Styszko  36 , Erik Teinemaa  22 , Hilkka Timonen  7 , Anja Tremper  19 , Jeni Vasilescu  25 , Marta Via  37 , Petr Vodička  31 , Alfred Wiedensohler  6 , Olga Zografou  14 , María Cruz Minguillón  38 , André S H Prévôt  39
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Free article

European aerosol phenomenology - 8: Harmonised source apportionment of organic aerosol using 22 Year-long ACSM/AMS datasets

Gang Chen et al. Environ Int. 2022 Aug.
Free article

Abstract

Organic aerosol (OA) is a key component of total submicron particulate matter (PM1), and comprehensive knowledge of OA sources across Europe is crucial to mitigate PM1 levels. Europe has a well-established air quality research infrastructure from which yearlong datasets using 21 aerosol chemical speciation monitors (ACSMs) and 1 aerosol mass spectrometer (AMS) were gathered during 2013-2019. It includes 9 non-urban and 13 urban sites. This study developed a state-of-the-art source apportionment protocol to analyse long-term OA mass spectrum data by applying the most advanced source apportionment strategies (i.e., rolling PMF, ME-2, and bootstrap). This harmonised protocol was followed strictly for all 22 datasets, making the source apportionment results more comparable. In addition, it enables quantification of the most common OA components such as hydrocarbon-like OA (HOA), biomass burning OA (BBOA), cooking-like OA (COA), more oxidised-oxygenated OA (MO-OOA), and less oxidised-oxygenated OA (LO-OOA). Other components such as coal combustion OA (CCOA), solid fuel OA (SFOA: mainly mixture of coal and peat combustion), cigarette smoke OA (CSOA), sea salt (mostly inorganic but part of the OA mass spectrum), coffee OA, and ship industry OA could also be separated at a few specific sites. Oxygenated OA (OOA) components make up most of the submicron OA mass (average = 71.1%, range from 43.7 to 100%). Solid fuel combustion-related OA components (i.e., BBOA, CCOA, and SFOA) are still considerable with in total 16.0% yearly contribution to the OA, yet mainly during winter months (21.4%). Overall, this comprehensive protocol works effectively across all sites governed by different sources and generates robust and consistent source apportionment results. Our work presents a comprehensive overview of OA sources in Europe with a unique combination of high time resolution (30-240 min) and long-term data coverage (9-36 months), providing essential information to improve/validate air quality, health impact, and climate models.

Keywords: European Overview; Harmonised Protocol; Long-term Datasets; Organic Aerosol; Rolling PMF; Source apportionment.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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