Abstract
Climate change affects air quality by altering weather patterns and thus affecting local and regional pollutant concentrations. It is observed that there is an increasing trend of tropical cyclones (TC) entering the Taiwan Strait causing a unique meteorological condition for triggering an air pollution episode in South China. In this study, we investigated the effect of climate change on TC and its subsequent effect on regional air quality in the Pearl River Delta (PRD). Analyses were based on the long-term TC track records from the Hong Kong Observatory along with the air quality monitoring data obtained from the Hong Kong Environmental Protection Department (HKEPD). Our results show that the increase of TC track density in the Taiwan region averaged +0.6 TC or +4.0% from 1991 to 2010, while the frequency of ozone episode (110 μg/m3 orgreater) in MJJA has been increased by 2.6 times due to the TC track change. The effect accounts for 30-40% of overall summer ozone episodes in PRD.
| Original language | English |
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| Publication status | Published - 3 Jun 2013 |
| Event | 12th International Conference on Atmospheric Sciences and Applications to Air Quality - Seoul, Korea, Republic of Duration: 3 Jun 2013 → 5 Jun 2013 |
Conference
| Conference | 12th International Conference on Atmospheric Sciences and Applications to Air Quality |
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| Place | Korea, Republic of |
| City | Seoul |
| Period | 3/06/13 → 5/06/13 |