Issue 5, 2023

Trends in atmospheric pollution in the Third Pole: analyses of tropospheric NO2 for the period 2005–2020

Abstract

The Third Pole, encompassing Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) and Tien Shan mountains, has been closely monitored for the past few decades because of its deteriorating environmental conditions. Here, we analyse the spatio-temporal changes in tropospheric NO2 over the TP using satellite observations from 2005 to 2020. The highest NO2 concentrations (i.e. ≥ 1 × 1015 molec. cm−2) are found at the boundaries close to the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) and Yellow and Yangtze River basins (YYRB). The analysis of the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR v6.1) shows that the main contribution to NO2 in the region is from road transport (81%) and then the power sector (7%). Hybrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) analyses illustrate that the major regions from which air mass reaches the TP are the IGP, Southeast Asia, YYRB, Central Asia and Middle East. Our analysis reveals a positive trend in NO2 over most regions of the TP (up to 0.05 ± 0.01 × 1015 molec. cm−2 year−1) in the yearly averaged data for the period 2005–2020, which suggest that pollution is spreading even to the inner regions of the TP. Therefore, this study reveals that the inner TP, one of the most pristine regions on Earth, is getting polluted because of high anthropogenic activities within and nearby areas/cities, indicating the impact of regional development activities and socioeconomic changes in recent years.

Graphical abstract: Trends in atmospheric pollution in the Third Pole: analyses of tropospheric NO2 for the period 2005–2020

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
23 Jūn. 2022
Accepted
19 Marts 2023
First published
20 Marts 2023
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Environ. Sci.: Atmos., 2023,3, 905-918

Trends in atmospheric pollution in the Third Pole: analyses of tropospheric NO2 for the period 2005–2020

B. R. Sharma, J. Kuttippurath, G. S. Gopikrishnan and M. Pathak, Environ. Sci.: Atmos., 2023, 3, 905 DOI: 10.1039/D2EA00075J

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements