Source contributions to rural carbonaceous winter aerosol in North-Eastern Poland

Summary, in English

Concentrations of aerosol particles in Poland and their sources are rarely discussed in peer-reviewed journal articles despite serious air quality issues. A source apportionment of carbonaceous aerosol particles was performed during winter at a rural background environment field site in north-eastern Poland. Data were used of light absorption at seven wavelengths and levoglucosan concentrations along existing monitoring of PM_2.5, organic carbon and elemental carbon (OC/EC) at the Diabla Gora EMEP monitoring site between January 17 and March 19 during the EMEP intensive winter campaign of 2018. Average PM_2.5, OC, EC, equivalent black carbon (eBC) and levoglucosan concentrations and standard deviations amounted to 18.5 ± 9.3, 4.5 ± 2.5, 0.57 ± 0.28, 1.04 ± 0.62 and 0.134 ± 0.084 μg m^-3 respectively. Various tools for source apportionment were used to obtain a source contribution to carbonaceous matter (CM) with three components. The wood combustion source component contributed 1.63 μg m^-3 (21%), domestic coal combustion 3.3 μg m^-3 (41%) and road transport exhaust 2.9 μg m^-3 (38%). Similar levels and temporal variability were found for the nearby Lithuanian site of Preila, corroborating the Polish results.