Visibility impairment during Yellow Sand periods in the urban atmosphere of Kwangju, Korea

For continuous monitoring of atmospheric visibility in the city of Kwangju, Korea, a transmissometer system consisting of a transmitter and a receiver was installed at a distance of 1.91 km across the downtown Kwangju, Korea. At the transmitter site a nephelometer and an aethalometer were also installed to measure the scattering and absorption coefficients of the atmosphere, respectively. Unusually high number of Yellow Sand events had occurred in the Northeast Asia during the spring of 2000. Visibility in Kwangju under such conditions was greatly impaired over large area for a few days. In order to investigate the effects of Yellow Sand on visibility impairment, chemical and elemental analyses of aerosol samples were performed along with the optical measurement of visibility. Hourly averaged visual range decreased from 61.7 to 1.9 km when hourly averaged concentration of PM10 varied from 32.9 to 601.8 μg/m3 during Yellow Sand periods. Fine particulate (<2.5 μm) concentrations were relatively lower than coarse particulate matters. Results of the data analyses show that mineral dusts originated from continental sources were simultaneously transported along with anthropogenic sulfate aerosols and marine aerosols. Total light extinction coefficient, bext, proposed by the IMPROVE network showed poor correlation with bext measured by transmissometer. Coarse mass scattering efficiency was classified into three categories; ENHSOc, Emineral, and Esea-salt, which were determined as ammonium sulfate combined with nss-sulfate of 1.0, sea-salt of 0.4, and mineral of 0.77 m2/g, respectively. Mass fraction of NHSOc, sea-salt, and mineral dust was 0.20, 0.14, and 0.66, respectively.