Interaction of gaseous pollutants with aerosols in Asia during March 2002

The Asian Dust Aerosol Model (ADAM) and the aerosol dynamic model with the output of the fifth generation of mesoscale model (MM5) in a grid of 60 × 60 km2 over the Asian domain have been performed with and without the heterogeneous reaction (gas–aerosol interaction) to estimate the effect of the gas–aerosol interaction on the formation of aerosol for the period of 1–31 March 2002 when a severe Asian dust event has been observed during this period. The simulated gas-phase pollutants concentrations and aerosols are compared with those observed in South Korea and the East Asia Network (EANET). The results indicate that the present modeling system including ADAM, aerosol dynamic model and MM5 model simulates quite well and the gas-phase pollutants concentrations observed in South Korea and the simulated aerosol concentrations with the gas–aerosol interaction yield much better results in concentrations than those without the gas–aerosol interaction. It is found that the favorable regions for the gas–aerosol interaction in Asia are eastern China (high pollutants emissions), Korea, Japan and the East China Sea that are downstream regions of the Asian dust sources and relatively high relative humidity. In these regions the concentrations of SO2 and O3 decrease whereas the concentrations of sulfate and nitrate increase significantly due to the gas–aerosol interaction. In particular, the increase of sulfate concentration due to the interaction is more than 30% of the corresponding concentration without the gas–aerosol interaction. It is also found that the time-area mean column concentrations of PM10, sulfate, nitrate in the model domain are respectively to be 154.9, 3.2, 3.6 mg m− 2 without the gas–aerosol interaction. However, with the gas–aerosol interaction these values have been increased to 0.6% (155.8 mg m− 2), 16% (3.7 mg m− 2), and 14% (4.1 mg m− 2) of the corresponding concentration without the gas–aerosol interaction. On the other hand, the time-area mean concentration of ammonium is found to decrease about 13% (1.8 mg m− 2 to 1.6 mg m− 2) due to the gas–aerosol interaction. The result clearly indicates the importance of the gas–aerosol interaction on the tropospheric chemistry during the long-range transport period.