Integrated Observation of Aerosol Plumes Transport and Impacts on the Air Quality Remote Sensing in the Northeast U.S.

Abstract

In this paper, we present a cluster analysis of plume transport paths to New York City (NYC, 40.821ºN, 73.949ºW) for the 8-year period during 2006-2013. We also show cases of such aloft aerosol plumes intrusion and mixing into the boundary layer (PBL) and the impact on local air quality. Range-resolved monthly occurrence frequency and modification of local aerosol optical properties are presented. The NOAA-HYSPLIT cluster analysis indicates 6 main transport paths; and the optical properties (optical depth-AOD, Angstrom exponent-AE and single scatter albedo-SSA) of aerosol for each cluster are characterized. We further illustrate the impact of these aloft plumes on the satellite MODIS estimate of ground PM2.5 levels and observe that when the aloft plumes-layer AODs are filtered out using lidar, the correlation of MODIS AOD-PM2.5 can be much improved.