Pearl River Delta - PRD-2006 field campaign

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The PRD-2006 project was a great opportunity to study air pollution in southern mainland China. PRD is one of three major centers under rapid development in China (aside Shanghai, and Beijing).

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More than 50 million people are living in the greater PRD metropolitan area, including Guangzhou, Hongkong and Macao. Traditionally an agricultural area (Chinese duck, fish farms, rice production) PRD as a free economic zone has in recent years attracted many foreign investors. Today's landuse is a mixture of agriculture and industry; PRD is the center for Chinese shoe production. The lack of enforcement of air quality standards has lead to a continuous decrease in air quality over the past decade.

During July 2006 a a custom built Mini-Multi Axes Differential Optical Absoprtion Spectroscopy (Mini-MAX-DOAS) instrument for the detection of glyoxal (CHOCHO), a novel indicator for active hydrocarbon photochemistry (hotspots) in the atmosphere, was mounted on top of a mobile laboratory to measure the spatial variability of CHOCHO, HCHO, and NO2 in the Pearl River Delta (PRD). These efforts were coordinated with overflights by the OMI (Ozone Monitoring Instrument) onboard the EOS-AURO satellite. MAX-DOAS measurements from ground are directly comparable with satellite retrievals, and enable to validate and optimize satellite retrievals. PRD as a case study for such satellite validation efforts is ideally suited as often high glyoxal columns are observed here.

First results were recently presented at the American Geophysical Union fall meeting 2006:

Volkamer, R. Kurosu, T.P.; Chance, K.; Li, Z.; Zhang, Y.; Brauers, T.; Wahner, A.; Spatial Variability of Glyoxal and Formaldehyde during PRD-2006: Comparison of mobile Mini-MAX-DOAS and OMI satellite data in the Pearl River Delta, China. Session A16 (POSTER). December 11-15, 2006 San Francisco, CA, USA.