• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.1-23
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• 1994

Visibility impairment phenomenon due to various air pollutants is a highly complex problem To understand this problem in Seoul, (1) theoretical background of visibility impairment; (2) methods to quantify visual range and to assess contribution of each air pollutant to the visibility impairment problem; and (3) previous field measurements and modeling studies, both in Korea and abroad, are critically reviewed.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.503-514
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• 2002

During the past two decades, primary pollutants in the ambient air have been substantially reduced in Korea by aggressive government efforts such as the switchover to clean fuels and equipment of automobiles with a three-way catalytic converter. However, visibility impairment in Seoul and major metropolitan areas has been a stubborn problem. It is apparent that both directly emitted fine particles mainly from vehicles and secondary fine particles from photochemical reactions could contribute to this visibility impairment. In addition, Korea is located downwind of the prevailing westerlies from China and is influenced by the emissions of air pollutants in China. In order to assess this complicated problem of visibility impairment, the visibility trends for the past 17 years observed at more than 60 stations throughout the country were analyzed. The results showed that visibilities were generally the lowest in the winter morning in comparison with those in the summer afternoon as well as the annual average values. It was believed that primary pollution was principally responsible for visibility impairment in most areas. The visibility in the summer afternoon was lower in clean coastal areas along with a high level of relative humidity due to the inflow of moist air accompanied by sea breeze. Although contributions of secondary particles from photochemical reactions and long-range transport of fine particles to the visibility impairment were probable, their certain evidences were not found.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.599-611
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• 1999

Now that the plume of point source was suspected to have strong impact on visibility impairment in Pusan, we evaluated visibility impairment impact of the pulme from Pusan Thermo Electric Power Plant in Pusan. Level-1 and-2 analyses were carried out using VISCREEN(Visual Impact Screen model). The emission rates for this Pusan Thermo Electric Power Plant was projected to be 116g/s of nitrogen oxides(as $NO_2$). The source fails the level-1 test with a Plume perceptibility(ΔE) of 30, nearly 15 times the screeing threshold. To characterize worstcase meteorological conditions for level-2 screening, we obtained meteorological data from Mar., 1996 to Feb., 1997 of Pusan Thermo Electric Power Plant. The source fails the level-2 test with a ΔE of 17, nearly 8.5 times the screening threshold. These analyses indicated that adverse visibility impairment could not be ruled out. Therefore a Level-3 analysis was performed using PLUVUE II(Plume Visibility model). As a result, maximum reduction of visual range for 0900LST in winter was 0.9%. Visual impact of the plume from vast point source was judged to be considerable in terms of background visibility of urban area.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.19 no.E3
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• pp.99-120
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• 2003

Visibility impairment in an urban area is mainly caused by airborne fine particulate matters. Visibility in a clean air environment is more sensitive to the change of PM$_{2.5}$ particle concentrations. However, a proportionally larger reduction in fine particle concentration is needed to achieve a small increment of visibility improvement in polluted areas. Continuous optical monitoring of atmospheric visibility and extensive aerosol measurements have been made in the urban atmosphere of Kwangju, Korea. The mean for fine particulate mass from 1999 to 2002 at Kwangju was measured to be 23.6$\pm$20.3 $\mu\textrm{g}$/㎥. The daily average seasonal visual range was measured to be 13.1, 9.2, 11.0, and 13.9 km in spring, summer, fall, and winter, respectively. The mean light extinction budgets by sulfate, nitrate, organic carbon, and elemental carbon aerosol were observed to be 27, 14, 22, and 12%, respectively. It is highly recommended that a new visibility standard and/or a fine particle standard be established in order to protect the health and welfare of general public. Much more work needs to be done in visibility studies, including long-term monitoring of visibility, improvement of visibility models, and formulating integrated strategies for managing fine particles to mitigate the visibility impairment and climate change.e.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.197-211
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• 2004

Visibility impairment was known as an indicator of the increased air pollution. In many previous studies, it is known that both directly emitted fine particles mainly from vehicles and secondary aerosols from photochemical reactions could contribute to this visibility impairment in addition to the meteorological condition. Furthermore, the visibility showed different change patterns according to the geographical condition. In order to research into the influence of these factors on visibility, this study analyzed the visibility at 15:00, observed from 1990 to 2001 in Seoul, Ganghwa, Susan, Gwangju, Jeju. As a result, the visibility was increased in Seoul except the rainfall period, but in Susan, Gwangju, Jeju, it decreased with the relative humidity (RH). Especially, in Seoul, the number of low visibility days was larger than other sites and variations of the visibility were sensitive to the concentration of air pollutants, such as TSP, $NO_2$, $O_3$. The visibility impairment was mainly observed in meteorological condition of RH<50% and relatively stationary front. Therefore it is inferred that photochemical smog could lead to the low visibility in Seoul. On the other hands, in Ganghwa and Susan, when RH was 60~70%, the low visibility observed under the influence of the transports of air pollutants from nearby cities as well as humid air mass from coastal region. And in Jeju, sea fog and humid air mass caused the visibility impairment when the RH was larger than 80%. Finally, during the observational period, some cases of low visibility phenomena were simultaneously observed in the vast region including Seoul, Susan, Ganghwa. It not only includes the visibility aggravation by Asian Dust, but also could be caused by the movement and diffusion of flying dust or secondary aerosols. Moreover, the result shows that these phenomena could be mainly influenced by meteorological factors covering the wide regions.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.319-329
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• 2015

The characteristics of aerosol light extinction were investigated by comparing measured and calculated extinction coefficient to understand the contribution of air pollutants on visibility impairment for data during 4 months (Jan~ April), 2014. The integrated nephelometer and aethalometer system were installed to measure the scattering and absorption coefficients of aerosol as well as BAM 1020, MARGA, semi-continuous OCEC analyzer, and online-XRF to calculate the extinction coefficient. The IMPROVE_2005 equation was used to determine the contributions of different chemical components on visibility impairment in $PM_{2.5}$ and $PM_{10}$ due to highest correlation with measured data. Sulfate, nitrate, and organic mass by carbon (OMC) of fine aerosol were the major contributors affecting on visibility impairment. Total contributions to light extinction were calculated as $631.0Mm^{-1}$ for the worst-case and $64.4Mm^{-1}$ for the best-case. The concentrations of aerosol component for the worst-case were 38.4 times and 45.5 times larger than those of the best-case for $(NH_4)_2SO_4$ and $NH_4NO_3$, respectively. At lower visibility condition, in which extinction coefficient was higher than $400Mm^{-1}$, extinction coefficient varied according to the relative humidity variation regardless of $PM_{2.5}$.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.325-338
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• 2009

National parks provide recreation, health, and science to human being. The provision of beautiful landscape view of the national park improves an economic and social phase of a nation. However, visibility impairment frequently occurred in the national park area of Gyeongju. The purpose of this study is to investigate the physical and the chemical characteristics of visibility reduction observed at the national park area of Gyeongju. Optical, chemical, meteorological characteristics and scenic monitoring were performed at the visibility monitoring station of Gyeongju University located at the Seoak section of Gyeongju national park from April 28 to May 9, 2008. Light extinction, light scattering, and light absorption coefficients were continuously measured using a transmissometer, a nephelometer, and an aethalometer, respectively. In order to investigate the impact of aerosol chemistry on visibility impairment, size-resolved aerosols were collected at intervals of 2-hour (from 8 A.M. to 6 P.M.) and 14-hour (from 6 P.M. to 8 A.M.) interval each sampling day. The average light extinction coefficient and the average visual range were measured to be $270{\pm}135\;Mm^{-1}$ and $14.5{\pm}6.3\;km$ during the intensive monitoring period, respectively. It was revealed that sulfate particle was the largest contributor to the light extinction under hazy condition. Organic mass accounted for about 26% of the average light extinction. The mass extinction efficiencies for $PM_{1.0}$, $PM_{2.5}$, and $PM_{10}$ were estimated to be 9.0, 4.7, and $2.7\;m^2\;g^{-1}$ under the consideration of water growth function of hygroscopic aerosols, respectively.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.1-14
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• 2018

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to investigate the main cause of visibility impairment by analyzing the contributions of the light extinction coefficient of major air pollution components and the change of the light extinction coefficient by relative humidity. Methods: The characteristics of the light extinction coefficient calculated by the photochemical method using fine particle component data measured in 2015 in the Gwangju area were examined. Results: The extinction efficiency per unit mass of $PM_{2.5}$ particles was $4.5m^2/g$ and that of $PM_{10-2.5}$ particles was $0.6m^2/g$. This difference indicates that most of the visibility impairment in Gwangju was caused by $PM_{2.5}$ particles. When visibility was poor, the contribution of ammonium sulphate and ammonium nitrate was significantly increased. Relative humidity was also a major cause of visibility decay. The influx of air currents in Gwangju was mostly caused by the long distance movement of pollutants emitted from the eastern part of China. Ammonium sulphate and ammonium nitrate, which are hygroscopic secondary contaminants, were the main causative agents of visibility impairment. Conclusions: Ammonium sulphate and ammonium nitrate were the main causative agents of visibility impairment in Gwangju. The influx of air currents in Gwangju was mostly caused by the long distance movement of pollutants emitted from the eastern part of China.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.563-574
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• 2007

There seems to be a consensus among most people that visibility impairment is the most obvious indicator of air pollution. While considerable evidence on the association between air pollution and health outcomes including death and disease have been established, based on industrial complex areas or huge urban cities, time-series, case-crossover and cohort studies, scarce literature exists on the direct evidence for the association between visibility and adverse health outcomes. Our study is assessed the effect of air pollution measured by visibility impairment on respiratory mortality over a period of six years. Relative risks in respiratory deaths were estimated by a Poisson regression model of daily deaths between $1999{\sim}2004$. Daily counts of respiratory deaths as dependent variable was modelled with daily 24-hr mean visibility measurements (kilometers) as independent variable by means of Poisson regression. This model is controlled for confounding factors such as day of weeks, weather variables, seasonal variables and $PM_{10}$. The results in this study is observed the statistically significant association between an inverse health effect and visibility during the study period for respiratory mortality (percentage change in the relative risk for all aged -0.57%, 95% Cl, $-1.01%{\sim}-0.12%$; for $0{\sim}15$ aged -7.12%, 95% Cl, $-13.29%{\sim}-0.51%$; for 65+ aged -0.43%, 95% Cl, $-0.93%{\sim}-0.06%$ per 1 km increased in visibility). The effect size was much reduced during warm season. Visibility impairment resulting from air pollution is strongly associated with respiratory mortality, especially for children may be spent at outdoor. Our result provides a quick and useful indicator for eliciting the contribution of air pollution to the excess risk of respiratory mortality in Seoul, Korea.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.15-21
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• 1996

Daily measutements of visibility on 09 LST have been made at a rural site in Chong-won, Chong-book since 1991 to find out a possible influence of emissions of anthropogenic pollutants and water vapout in urban and rural environments. Daily visibility data collected over four-year period were compared with the available visibility and air quality data obtainde from other stations. Detailed examinations of our data showed that the frequency of fog occurrence (visibility .leq. 1 km) at a rural site (KNUE) was at least three times higher (77 days per year) than the frequency of fog both in Chong-ju city (19 days) and at the Air Force Base(AFB) in the rural area. We interpret that the higher frequency of fog at KNUE was due to abundant water vapour in the Mieho River (upstream of the Keum River) area. In Chong-ju city, fog usually continued for a relatively long duration, while it dissipated simewhat faster in the rural environment due to higher solar radiation in the countryside area. The number of misty (.leg. 6 km) days (including foggy days) at KNUE were 235 days as compared with 135 days at the AFB and 67 days in Chong-ju city. In turn the number of days with low visibility (less than 6 km) at KNUE was about 64% per year. Since the moisture alone in a calm morning does not produce a visibility impairment, there must had abundant condensation nuclei including anthropogenic air pollutants. Air pollution was examined, for instance, average values of TSP for November and December 1993 were 115 and 116.mu.g/m$^{3}$, respectively. We conclude that the above mentioned environmental conditions with moisture are favourable for the formation of fog and mist in the rural sampling site at KNUE. Additionally, we found at least 10 days of acid fog at KNUE in September 1994 alone. Measured pH values in the acid for water were in the range of 4.36 .sim. 5.01 with the mean value of 4.51 Our observations suggested that strikingly acid fog do occur occasionally even in the rural environment.