Characterizing the Afghanistan aerosol environment using size- and time- resolved aerosol chemical composition measurements

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Characterizing the Afghanistan aerosol environment using size- and time- resolved aerosol chemical composition measurements

Fortun, Todd Allen

URI: http://hdl.handle.net/11122/8448

Date: 2012-05

Subject: Atmospheric aerosols ; Afghanistan

Type: Thesisms

Table of Contents: 1. Introduction -- 1.1. Definition and formation of aerosols -- 1.2. Thesis goals -- 1.3. Climatology of the Afghanistan region -- 1.3.1. Wind patterns -- 1.3.2. Diurnal cycles -- 1.4. Elemental sources and uses -- 1.5. Aerosol chemistry and seasonality -- 1.5.1. Geological dust -- 1.5.2. Anthropogenic aerosols -- 1.5.2.1. Pakistan -- 1.5.2.2. Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan -- 1.5.3. Biomass burning -- 1.5.4. Aerosols over seas and oceans -- 1.6. Health concerns and standards -- 2. Experimental methods -- 2.1. Wind roses -- 2.2. DRUM aerosol impactors -- 2.3. HYSPLIT and sector analysis -- 2.4. Principla components analysis -- 2.4.1. PCA procedure -- 2.4.2. Eigenvector loadings -- 2.4.3. PCA on aerosol samples -- 2.5. Chemical mass balance (CMB) model -- 3. Results and discussion -- 3.1. Wind roses -- 3.2. Elemental concentrations -- 3.2.1. Geological dust -- 3.2.2. Heavy metal events -- 3.3. PM₁₀ and PM₂.₅ concentrations and comparison to health safety standards -- 3.4. Sector analysis -- 3.5. PCA -- 3.6. CMB model -- 4. Conclusions -- 5. Future work -- References.

Abstract:

The exposure to aerosols is one danger U.S. soldiers face in Afghanistan that may go unseen. Using the Davis Rotating-drum Universal-size-cut Monitoring (DRUM) cascade impactor, size- and time- resolved aerosol chemical concentrations from Bagram, Afghanistan were collected. These aerosol concentrations were combined with a meteorological analysis and Hybrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model meteorological backward trajectories to establish source sectors. These sectors, along with time of year, were then used as a predictive tool for the chemical composition and relative concentration of aerosols in Afghanistan. Principal components analysis (PCA) was used to determined potential source types. PM₁₀ and PM₂.₅ were compared to military exposure guidelines and U.S. national ambient air quality standards. Results reveal aerosol concentrations in Afghanistan were at levels for which adverse health effects could be anticipated.