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Li Y, Fu TM, Yu JZ, Feng X, Zhang L, Chen J, Boreddy SKR, Kawamura K, Fu P, Yang X, Zhu L, Zeng Z. Impacts of Chemical Degradation on the Global Budget of Atmospheric Levoglucosan and Its Use As a Biomass Burning Tracer. ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 2021; 55:5525-5536. [PMID: 33754698 DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.0c07313] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
Abstract
Levoglucosan has been widely used to quantitatively assess biomass burning's contribution to ambient aerosols, but previous such assessments have not accounted for levoglucosan's degradation in the atmosphere. We develop the first global simulation of atmospheric levoglucosan, explicitly accounting for its chemical degradation, to evaluate the impacts on levoglucosan's use in quantitative aerosol source apportionment. Levoglucosan is emitted into the atmosphere from the burning of plant matter in open fires (1.7 Tg yr-1) and as biofuels (2.1 Tg yr-1). Sinks of atmospheric levoglucosan include aqueous-phase oxidation (2.9 Tg yr-1), heterogeneous oxidation (0.16 Tg yr-1), gas-phase oxidation (1.4 × 10-4 Tg yr-1), and dry and wet deposition (0.27 and 0.43 Tg yr -1). The global atmospheric burden of levoglucosan is 19 Gg with a lifetime of 1.8 days. Observations show a sharp decline in levoglucosan's concentrations and its relative abundance to organic carbon aerosol (OC) and particulate K+ from near-source to remote sites. We show that such features can only be reproduced when levoglucosan's chemical degradation is included in the model. Using model results, we develop statistical parametrizations to account for the atmospheric degradation in levoglucosan measurements, improving their use for quantitative aerosol source apportionment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yumin Li
- School of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province 518055, China
- Division of Environment and Sustainability, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, 999077, China
| | - Tzung-May Fu
- School of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province 518055, China
- Shenzhen Institute of Sustainable Development, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province 518055, China
| | - Jian Zhen Yu
- Division of Environment and Sustainability, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, 999077, China
- Department of Chemistry, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, 999077, China
| | - Xu Feng
- School of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province 518055, China
- Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
| | - Lijuan Zhang
- School of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province 518055, China
- Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
| | - Jing Chen
- Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060-0819, Japan
- School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
| | - Suresh Kumar Reddy Boreddy
- Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060-0819, Japan
- Space Physics Laboratory, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Indian Space Research Organization, Thiruvananthapuram, 695022, India
| | - Kimitaka Kawamura
- Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060-0819, Japan
- Chubu Institute for Advanced Studies, Chubu University, Kasugai 487-8501, Japan
| | - Pingqing Fu
- School of Earth System Science, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China
| | - Xin Yang
- School of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province 518055, China
- Shenzhen Institute of Sustainable Development, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province 518055, China
| | - Lei Zhu
- School of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province 518055, China
- Shenzhen Institute of Sustainable Development, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province 518055, China
| | - Zhenzhong Zeng
- School of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province 518055, China
- Shenzhen Institute of Sustainable Development, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province 518055, China
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