Recent changes in winter PM2.5 contributions from wood smoke, motor vehicles, and other sources in the Northwest U.S.

In the Northwest U.S. elevated measurements of PM2.5 from anthropogenic sources occur most often in winter. Major contributors to winter PM2.5 are direct primary emissions of wood smoke from residential wood combustion, primary emissions from motor vehicles, gaseous NOx emissions leading to particulate nitrate, and primary and secondary sources of particulate sulfate. A number of communities in the Northwest U.S. now have long data records of chemically speciated PM2.5 from which receptor-based source apportionment can be performed. This work uses receptor-based source apportionment on data from these monitoring sites to evaluate changes in the major contributors to winter PM2.5 over the available monitoring time span. Data from 9 sites are analyzed in this work using the Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) source apportionment model. Each site was modeled individually rather than grouping the data from multiple sites. All sites had data through the summer of 2018, with most sites having 11 years of data and one site having 9 years of data. The number of PMF factors identified was between 5 to 10, depending on the site. Associations were made between PMF factors and PM2.5 sources based on comparison of PMF factor chemical profiles with published source test data and source profiles identified in other published studies. The most common factors found were: fresh wood smoke, aged wood smoke, soil dust, gas engines, mixed - gas engines and nitrate, ammonium sulfate, and ammonium nitrate. In this work, total wood smoke was identified as the combined contribution of fresh and aged wood smoke, and winter season data was defined as encompassing the last two months of a year and the first two months of the next year. To evaluate changes over time, average winter season PM2.5 measurements, major PM2.5 chemical components, and PMF factor results for the winter seasons of 2007 - 2009 were compared with the winter seasons of 2015 - 2017. The result for total 3-year average winter season PM2.5 was a decrease between 2% and 29% at the 9 sites, and the decreases were statistically significant at 3 sites. However, total winter season wood smoke contributions to PM2.5 decreased at every site between the two 3-year periods and the decreases were statistically significant at 8 of 9 sites, with decreases from 48% to 74% at those 8 sites. All PMF factors associated with ammonium nitrate (identified at 5 of 9 sites) decreased a statistically significant 11% to 54% between the two 3-year winter season periods. All PMF factors associated with ammonium sulfate (identified at 7 of 9 sites) decreased a statistically significant 27% to 81% between the two 3-year winter season periods. In contrast to the significant reductions in PM2.5 from PMF factors related to wood smoke, ammonium nitrate and ammonium sulfate, PMF factors associated with gas engines increased from 6% to 226% between the two 3-year winter season periods. Increases in PM2.5 contributions from gas engine related factors explain why overall average winter season PM2.5 had more modest percent reductions compared to the percent reductions for wood smoke, ammonium nitrate, and ammonium sulfate factors between the two 3-year winter season periods.

Citation

Robert A Kotchenruther. Recent changes in winter PM2.5 contributions from wood smoke, motor vehicles, and other sources in the Northwest U.S. Atmospheric environment (Oxford, England : 1994). 2020 Sep 15;237:117724

PMID: 32982564

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