Association of Air Pollution Levels to Atmospheric Weather Regimes over Europe

Abstract

The ability to link air pollution to weather regimes may help municipalities to activate in advance plans to protect citizens from severe episodes of air pollution. The aim of this work was to associate the atmospheric circulation patterns and air pollution over Berlin using observational data from three air quality monitoring stations (Urban, Suburban and Traffic stations) during the period January 1990 to December 2002, with weather type’s classifications issued in the frame of the European Cooperation in Science and Technology project (COST733). Results obtained in this work shows similar higher ozone (O3) concentrations and weather regime type during the summer season for both the three stations and the two cluster methods used viz. Self-Organizing Maps (SOM) and cluster analysis of principal components (CAP). The highest concentration level of ozone was observed in the suburban station. High pollution that occurred from the particulate matter (PM10) was observed in the urban station during the winter season. The highest nitrogen dioxide (NO2) value was observed in the traffic station during the spring season. However, the traffic station is probably not a very good indicator of the sensitivity of air quality in meteorology, because it is too much affected by local sources.