A Weekend Effect in Diurnal Temperature Range and its Association with Aerosols in Seoul

서울의 일교차 주말효과와 에어러솔과의 연관성

A weekend effect has been investigated in diurnal temperature range (DTR) for Seoul in Korea using 50-year (1955 ~ 2005) surface measurements of maximum and minimum temperatures, and particle mass concentrations (PM10). The minimum temperature increases by 0.42K per decade, 2 times faster than the maximum temperature during 1955 to 2005, for rapid urbanization has occurred in Seoul. The weekend effect, which is defined as the DTR for Sunday minus the average DTR for Tuseday through Thursday, can be as large as +0.08 K for the recent 20-year period relative to 0.01K for 1955 to 1975. Especially the wintertime DTR tends to have a remarkable positive weekend effect (+0.17K), that is, larger DTR on Sunday compared to weekdays, which seems to be associated with increased maximum temperature and thus an increase in DTR. This result could be explained by relative differences in PM10 concentration between Sunday and weekdays (Tuesday through Thursday), such that PM10 concentration on Sundays appears to be systematically lower about 12% than on weekdays. The annually average weekend DTR increases by 0.2K with $10{\mu}gm^{-3}$ decrease in PM10 concentration in comparison with weekdays. The results could be possible evidence of an anthropogenic link to DTR, one of climate important indicators, since no meteorological phenomenon is supposed to occur over a 7 day cycle.