Journal of Earth Science & Climatic Change
Open Access

Abstract

High air pollution episodes over southern Ontario, Canada, are studied with a purpose to understand the underlying meteorological mechanisms responsible for such episodes. Fine particulate matter (PM) is selected to characterize variations of air pollution events on hourly, daily, and monthly time scales. We particularly focus on the summertime because it is the season when mean PM2.5 value is high, and the high PM2.5 episode occurs more frequently than other seasons. Daily PM2.5 concentrations in the summer in our study site can sometimes far exceeds 25 µg/m3 , a standard set by the World Health Organization in 2005. We found these episodes are highly related to the synoptic weather conditions. All the episodes in 2006 are examined, and the associated weather patterns are categorized. This presentation will illustrate the cases of high PM episodes in different weather patterns, along with variations in meteorological variables including temperature, humidity, wind speed, wind direction, and surface pressure. Through the trajectory analysis, we also show importance of pollution transport and sources of air pollution in these cases.

Biography

Jenny Cui has completed her Honour Bachelor of Science from the University of Toronto. She examined the meteorological influences on particulate matter in the Honours Thesis course with Professor Jane Liu from the University of Toronto.