Air Pollution Monitoring in Taiwan: An Application of Tethersonding in Coastal Central Taiwan

The atmospheric transportation and dispersion processes of air pollutants are important issues in dealing with air pollution problems. Air pollutants originated from biological and anthropogenic activities are not only limited to the local emission sources, but could also be transported and dispersed to other regions by synoptic weather systems. Besides, the complexity of topography of central Taiwan helps accumulating air pollutants to promote high-concentration episodes. The techniques of tethersonding were applied to monitor the vertical profiles of winds, air temperatures and humidity, as well as to collect air samples, to be analyzed for pollutants ($O_3,\;NO_2$, NO and NMHC) from the ground up to 1000 m. A time period of about one week, 19 -26 October 2002, was chosen as the sampling period due to the high frequency of episode occurrence in autumn based on the past records. Associating with the analysis of weather patterns, the atmospheric characteristics over high-concentration areas can be resolved in more detail. The result of the tethersonding studies showed that weak northerly sea breeze (with thickness about 300 m) with now wind speed (about 1 to 2 m/sec) could help develop high ozone concentrations in the down-wind areas. It is also important to have a built-up aloft of precursors and ozone to develop high concentration on the previous day.