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Sources and atmospheric dynamics of organic aerosol in New Delhi, India: Insights from receptor modeling
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  • Sahil Bhandari,
  • Shahzad Gani,
  • Kanan Patel,
  • Dongyu Wang,
  • Prashant Soni,
  • Zainab Arub,
  • Gazala Habib,
  • Joshua Apte,
  • Lea Hildebrandt Ruiz
Sahil Bhandari
The University of Texas at Austin
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Shahzad Gani
The University of Texas at Austin
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Kanan Patel
The University of Texas at Austin
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Dongyu Wang
Paul Scherrer Institut
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Prashant Soni
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
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Zainab Arub
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
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Gazala Habib
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
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Joshua Apte
The University of Texas at Austin
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Lea Hildebrandt Ruiz
The University of Texas at Austin

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Abstract

Delhi, India, is the second most populated city in the world and routinely experiences some of the highest particulate matter concentrations of any megacity on the planet, posing acute challenges to public health (World Health Organization, 2018). However, the current understanding of the sources and dynamics of PM pollution in Delhi is limited. Measurements at the Delhi Aerosol Supersite (DAS) provide a long-term chemical characterization of ambient submicron aerosol in Delhi, with near-continuous online measurements of aerosol composition. Here we report on source apportionment based on positive matrix factorization (PMF), conducted on 15 months of highly time-resolved speciated submicron non-refractory PM1 (NRPM1) between January 2017 and March 2018.We report on seasonal variability across four seasons of 2017 and interannual variability using data from the two winters and springs of 2017 and 2018. We show that a modified tracer-based organic component analysis provides an opportunity for a real-time source apportionment approach for organics in Delhi. Thermodynamic modeling allows estimation of the importance of ventilation coefficient (VC) and temperature in controlling primary and secondary organic aerosol. We also find that primary aerosol dominates severe air pollution episodes.
22 Jan 2020Published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics volume 20 issue 2 on pages 735-752. 10.5194/acp-20-735-2020