New Insights into Unexpected Severe PM 2.5 Pollution during the SARS and COVID-19 Pandemic Periods in Beijing

During the SARS period in 2003 and COVID-19 pandemic period in 2020, unexpected severe particulate matter pollution occurred in northern China, although the anthropogenic activities and associated emissions have assumed to be reduced dramatically. This anomalistic increase in PM pollution raises a q...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEnvironmental science & technology Vol. 56; no. 1; pp. 155 - 164
Main Authors Zuo, Peijie, Zong, Zheng, Zheng, Bo, Bi, Jianzhou, Zhang, Qinghua, Li, Wei, Zhang, Jingwei, Yang, Xuezhi, Chen, Zigu, Yang, Hang, Lu, Dawei, Liu, Qian, Jiang, Guibin
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 04.01.2022
Subjects
Air Pollutants - analysis
Air Pollution - analysis
Anthropogenic Effects
Beijing
China
COVID-19
Environmental Monitoring
Humans
Pandemics
Particulate Matter - analysis
SARS-CoV-2
Beijing
China
COVID-19
SARS
copper isotope
primary emission
PM2.5
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Summary:During the SARS period in 2003 and COVID-19 pandemic period in 2020, unexpected severe particulate matter pollution occurred in northern China, although the anthropogenic activities and associated emissions have assumed to be reduced dramatically. This anomalistic increase in PM pollution raises a question about how source emissions impact the air quality during these pandemic periods. In this study, we investigated the stable Cu and Si isotopic compositions and typical source-specific fingerprints of PM and its sources. We show that the primary PM emissions (PM emitted directly from sources) actually had no reduction but redistribution during these pandemic periods, rather than the previous thought of being greatly reduced. This finding provided critical evidence to interpret the anomalistic PM increase during the pandemic periods in north China. Our results also suggested that both the energy structure adjustment and stringent regulations on primary emissions should be synergistically implemented in a regional scale for clean air actions in China.
ISSN:0013-936X
1520-5851
DOI:10.1021/acs.est.1c05383