“APEC Blue” association with emission control and meteorological conditions detected by multi-scale statistics

The term “APEC Blue” has been created to describe the clear sky days since the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit held in Beijing during November 5-11, 2014. The duration of the APEC Blue is detected from November 1 to November 14 (hereafter Blue Window) by moving t test in statistics. Observations show that APEC Blue corresponds to low air pollution with respect to PM2.5, PM10, SO2, and NO2 under strict emission-control measures (ECMs) implemented in Beijing and surrounding areas. Quantitative assessment shows that ECM is more effective on reducing aerosols than the chemical constituents. Statistical investigation has revealed that the window also resulted from intensified wind variability, as well as weakened static stability of atmosphere (SSA). The wind and ECMs played key roles in reducing air pollution during November 1-7 and 11-13, and strict ECMs and weak SSA become dominant during November 7-10 under weak wind environment. Moving correlation manifests that the emission reduction for aerosols can increase the apparent wind cleanup effect, leading to significant negative correlations of them, and the period-wise changes in emission rate can be well identified by multi-scale correlations basing on wavelet decomposition. In short, this case study manifests statistically how human interference modified air quality in the mega city through controlling local and surrounding emissions in association with meteorological condition.