News

The Report on the results of lidar measurements of atmospheric pollution by aerosol particles over the Scandinavia highway has been prepared

The partners of the Green InterTraffic project - representatives of SPU - have prepared the Report on the results of lidar measurements of atmospheric pollution by aerosol particles over the Scandinavia highway.

The mobile multi-wave lidar system is designed for mobile operational remote determination of the physical state of the atmosphere in megacities, large industrial centers, and areas of environmental disasters. The complex collects information from the lower surface layer of the atmosphere up to an altitude of 3 km.

To understand the formation of aerosol pollutions and their vertical distribution in the lower atmosphere in the period from 2019 to 2020, a series of measurements using a mobile lidar complex was performed. Due to difficulties in crossing the Russian-Finnish border, from COVID-19 the measurements were made only on the Russian side. But the statistical model was developed that describes the vertical distribution of the number concentration of aerosol particles, according to the available information, and the extrapolation of the initial data was carried out based on this model. An additional series of measurements was made near the border, including at the time of the western and north-western transfer of air masses from Finland.

It is noted that no significant aerosol layers were detected alongside the Scandinavian highway in Russia and by the transfer from the Republic of Finland during the measurement period. Taking into account the direction of transfer in the atmosphere, it can be noted that during the western and northwestern transfer (from Finland) at all measurement points observed on August 16, 2019 and November 6, 2020, the number concentration of particles is increasing when moving from the border with Finland towards St. Petersburg. This allows to conclude that a slightly lower concentration of aerosol particles was noted on the territory of Finland during the measurement period.

Modeling of the propagation of aerosol particles from the Scandinavian highway using the autoregressive model made it possible to estimate the decrease in the content of aerosol particles by the distance from the highway. The concentration of aerosol particles decreases strongly by the distance from the route at low altitudes.