Transport of airborne particulate matters originating from Mentougou, Beijing, China

In this study, a coupled regional air quality modeling system is applied to investigate the time spatial variations in airborne particulate matters (PM₁₀), originating from Mentougou to Beijing municipal area in the period of April 1–7, 2004, and the influences of complex terrain and meteorological conditions upon boundary layer structure and PM₁₀ concentration distributions. An intercomparison of the performance with CALPUFF against the observed data is presented and an examination of scatter plots is provided. The statistics show that the correlation coefficient and STD between the modeled and observed data are 0.86 and 0.03, respectively. Analysis of model results illustrates that the pollutants emitted from Mentougou can be transported to Beijing municipal area along certain transport pathways, and PM₁₀ concentration distributions show heterogeneity characteristics. Contributions of the Mentougou sources to the PM₁₀ concentrations in Beijing municipal area are up to 0.1–15 μg/m³.