Contribution of transboundary air pollution to ionic concentrations in fog in the Kinki Region of Japan

To estimate the contribution of transboundary transported air pollutants from other Asian countries to Japan in ionic concentrations in fog water in March 2005, the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) modeling system was utilized with meteorological fields produced by the 5th generation Mesoscale Model (MM5). For meteorological predictions, the model well reproduced the surface meteorological variables, particularly temperature and humidity, and generally captured fog occurrence. For chemical predictions, most of the model-predicted monthly mean concentrations were approximately within a factor of 2 of the observations, indicating that the model well simulated the long-range atmospheric transport from the Asian Continent to Japan. For SO42−, NO3− and NH4+, the contribution rates of the transboundary air pollution in the Kinki Region of Japan ranged from 69 to 82% for aerosols, from 47 to 87% for ionic concentrations in rain, and from 55 to 79% for ionic concentrations in fog. The study found that the transboundary air pollution also affected ionic concentrations in fog as well as aerosol concentrations and ionic concentrations in rain.