scholarly journals Air Pollution Flow Patterns in the Mexico City Region

Climate ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (11) ◽  
pp. 128
Author(s):  
Alejandro Salcido ◽  
Susana Carreón-Sierra ◽  
Ana-Teresa Celada-Murillo

According to the Mexico City Emissions Inventory, mobile sources are responsible for approximately 86% of nitrogen oxide emissions in this region, and correspond to a NOx emission of 51 and 58 kilotons per year in Mexico City and the State of Mexico, respectively. Ozone levels in this region are often high and persist as one of the main problems of air pollution. Identifying the main scenarios for the transport and dispersion of air pollutants requires the knowledge of their flow patterns. This work examines the surface flow patterns of air pollutants (NO2, O3, SO2, and PM10) in the area of Mexico City (a region with strong orographic influences) over the period 2001–2010. The flow condition of a pollutant depends on the spatial distribution of its concentration and the mode of wind circulation in the region. We achieved the identification and characterization of the pollutant flow patterns through the exploitation of the 1-hour average values of the pollutant concentrations and wind data provided by the atmospheric monitoring network of Mexico City and the application of the k-means method of cluster analysis. The data objects for the cluster analysis were obtained by modeling Mexico City as a 4-cell spatial domain and describing, for each pollutant, the flow state in a cell by the spatial averages of the horizontal pollutant flow vector and its gradients (the divergence and curl of the flow vector). We identified seven patterns for wind circulation and nine patterns for each of NO2, O3, PM10, and SO2 pollutant flows. Their seasonal and annual average intensities and probabilities of occurrence were estimated.

Atmosphere ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (8) ◽  
pp. 1006-1031 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susana Carreón-Sierra ◽  
Alejandro Salcido ◽  
Telma Castro ◽  
Ana-Teresa Celada-Murillo

Subject Air pollution in Mexico City. Significance From March 29 until June 30, all cars in Mexico City have been ordered off the roads for one day per week, regardless of their emission levels, due to severe pollution. Drivers will also have to leave their cars at home for one Saturday per month. High levels of air pollutants had already prompted city authorities to step up restrictions on private vehicles and freight circulation for three days in mid-March, and again in early April. Impacts The situation may prove politically costly for Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera, of the Party of the Democratic Revolution. The population's lack of environmental education will see resistance from residents to continued emergency measures. A solution will require coordination by all states in the wider ZMVM. However, financial and political costs will curb state administrations' willingness to take joint responsibility.


2007 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 13035-13076 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. de Foy ◽  
J. D. Fast ◽  
S. J. Paech ◽  
D. Phillips ◽  
J. T. Walters ◽  
...  

Abstract. The MILAGRO field campaign was a multi-agency international collaborative project to evaluate the regional impacts of the Mexico City air pollution plume as a means of understanding urban impacts on the global climate. Mexico City lies on an elevated plateau with mountains on three sides and has complex mountain and surface-driven wind flows. This paper asks what the wind transport was in the basin during the field campaign and how representative it was of the climatology. Surface meteorology and air quality data, radiosoundings and radar wind profiler data were collected at sites in the basin and its vicinity. Cluster analysis is used to identify the dominant wind patterns both during the campaign and within the past 10 years of operational data from the warm dry season. Our analysis shows that March 2006 was representative of typical flow patterns experienced in the basin. Six episode types were identified for the basin scale circulation providing a way of interpreting atmospheric chemistry and particulate data collected during the campaign. Decoupling between surface winds and those aloft had a strong influence in leading to convection and poor air quality episodes. Hourly characterisation of wind circulation during the MILAGRO, MCMA-2003 and IMADA field campaigns will enable the comparisons of similar air pollution episodes and the evaluation of the impact of wind transport on measurements of the atmospheric chemistry taking place in the basin.


1996 ◽  
Vol 92 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomás Hernández Tejeda ◽  
Cecilia Nieto de Pascual Pola

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gurusamy Kutralam-Muniasamy ◽  
Fermín Pérez-Guevara ◽  
Priyadarsi D. Roy ◽  
I. Elizalde-Martínez ◽  
V.C. Shruti

Abstract Mexico City is the second most populated city in Latin America, and it went through two partial lockdowns between April 1 and May 31, 2020 for reducing the COVID-19 propagation. The present study assessed air quality and its association with human mortality rates during the lockdown by estimating changes observed in air pollutants (CO, NO2, O3, SO2, PM10 and PM2.5) between the lockdown (April 1 - May 31) and pre-lockdown (January 1 – March 31) periods, as well as by comparing the air quality data of lockdown period with the same interval of previous five-years (2015-2019). Concentrations of NO2 (-29%), SO2 (-55%) and PM10 (-11%) declined and the contents of CO (+1.1%), PM2.5 (+19%) and O3 (+63%) increased during the lockdown compared to the pre-lockdown period. This study also estimated that NO2, SO2, CO, PM10 and PM2.5 reduced by 19-36%, and O3 enhanced by 14% compared to the average of 2015-2019. Reduction in traffic as well as less emission from vehicle exhausts led to remarkable decline in NO2, SO2 and PM10. The significant positive associations of PM2.5, CO and O3 with the numbers of COVID-19 infections and deaths, however, underscored the necessity to enforce air pollution regulations to protect human health in one of the important cities of the northern hemisphere.


2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 1209-1224 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. de Foy ◽  
J. D. Fast ◽  
S. J. Paech ◽  
D. Phillips ◽  
J. T. Walters ◽  
...  

Abstract. The MILAGRO field campaign was a multi-agency international collaborative project to evaluate the regional impacts of the Mexico City air pollution plume as a means of understanding urban impacts on the global climate. Mexico City lies on an elevated plateau with mountains on three sides and has complex mountain and surface-driven wind flows. This paper asks what the wind transport was in the basin during the field campaign and how representative it was of the climatology. Surface meteorology and air quality data, radiosondes and radar wind profiler data were collected at sites in the basin and its vicinity. Cluster analysis was used to identify the dominant wind patterns both during the campaign and within the past 10 years of operational data from the warm dry season. Our analysis shows that March 2006 was representative of typical flow patterns experienced in the basin. Six episode types were identified for the basin-scale circulation providing a way of interpreting atmospheric chemistry and particulate data collected during the campaign. Decoupling between surface winds and those aloft had a strong influence in leading to convection and poor air quality episodes. Hourly characterisation of wind circulation during the MILAGRO, MCMA-2003 and IMADA field campaigns enables the comparisons of similar air pollution episodes and the evaluation of the impact of wind transport on measurements of the atmospheric chemistry taking place in the basin.


Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 490
Author(s):  
Yevgen Nazarenko ◽  
Parisa A. Ariya

Interactions with environmental surfaces significantly affect the abundance and distribution of air pollutants [...]


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rui Zhang ◽  
Yujie Meng ◽  
Hejia Song ◽  
Ran Niu ◽  
Yu Wang ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Although exposure to air pollution has been linked to many health issues, few studies have quantified the modification effect of temperature on the relationship between air pollutants and daily incidence of influenza in Ningbo, China. Methods The data of daily incidence of influenza and the relevant meteorological data and air pollution data in Ningbo from 2014 to 2017 were retrieved. Low, medium and high temperature layers were stratified by the daily mean temperature with 25th and 75th percentiles. The potential modification effect of temperature on the relationship between air pollutants and daily incidence of influenza in Ningbo was investigated through analyzing the effects of air pollutants stratified by temperature stratum using distributed lag non-linear model (DLNM). Stratified analysis by sex and age were also conducted. Results Overall, a 10 μg/m3 increment of O3, PM2.5, PM10 and NO2 could increase the incidence risk of influenza with the cumulative relative risk of 1.028 (95% CI 1.007, 1.050), 1.061 (95% CI 1.004, 1.122), 1.043 (95% CI 1.003, 1.085), and 1.118 (95% CI 1.028, 1.216), respectively. Male and aged 7–17 years were more sensitive to air pollutants. Through the temperature stratification analysis, we found that temperature could modify the impacts of air pollution on daily incidence of influenza with high temperature exacerbating the impact of air pollutants. At high temperature layer, male and the groups aged 0–6 years and 18–64 years were more sensitive to air pollution. Conclusion Temperature modified the relationship between air pollution and daily incidence of influenza and high temperature would exacerbate the effects of air pollutants in Ningbo.


Author(s):  
Qiwei Yu ◽  
Liqiang Zhang ◽  
Kun Hou ◽  
Jingwen Li ◽  
Suhong Liu ◽  
...  

Exposure to air pollution has been suggested to be associated with an increased risk of women’s health disorders. However, it remains unknown to what extent changes in ambient air pollution affect gynecological cancer. In our case–control study, the logistic regression model was combined with the restricted cubic spline to examine the association of short-term exposure to air pollution with gynecological cancer events using the clinical data of 35,989 women in Beijing from December 2008 to December 2017. We assessed the women’s exposure to air pollutants using the monitor located nearest to each woman’s residence and working places, adjusting for age, occupation, ambient temperature, and ambient humidity. The adjusted odds ratios (ORs) were examined to evaluate gynecologic cancer risk in six time windows (Phase 1–Phase 6) of women’s exposure to air pollutants (PM2.5, CO, O3, and SO2) and the highest ORs were found in Phase 4 (240 days). Then, the higher adjusted ORs were found associated with the increased concentrations of each pollutant (PM2.5, CO, O3, and SO2) in Phase 4. For instance, the adjusted OR of gynecological cancer risk for a 1.0-mg m−3 increase in CO exposures was 1.010 (95% CI: 0.881–1.139) below 0.8 mg m−3, 1.032 (95% CI: 0.871–1.194) at 0.8–1.0 mg m−3, 1.059 (95% CI: 0.973–1.145) at 1.0–1.4 mg m−3, and 1.120 (95% CI: 0.993–1.246) above 1.4 mg m−3. The ORs calculated in different air pollution levels accessed us to identify the nonlinear association between women’s exposure to air pollutants (PM2.5, CO, O3, and SO2) and the gynecological cancer risk. This study supports that the gynecologic risks associated with air pollution should be considered in improved public health preventive measures and policymaking to minimize the dangerous effects of air pollution.


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