Estimation of wet deposition of sulfate using routinely available meteorological data and air-monitored data in Korea

A method is developed to estimate wet deposition of sulfate using routinely available meteorological data and air-monitored data. This approach takes into account different mechanisms of precipitation formation that determines sulfate concentration in precipitation water. Four different precipitating cloud types, including cold cloud, warm cloud, stratified layered cloud and convective cloud, according to their precipitation formations are incorporated differently to estimate sulfate concentration in precipitation water with the airborne sulfate concentration estimated by routinely available monitored data by regression equations. Two different regression equations for the estimation of airborne sulfate concentration are developed: one is applicable in winter, and the other in other seasons except for winter. The presently developed algorithm has been implemented in Seoul to estimate wet deposition of sulfate in 1997 when the measured wet deposition of sulfate is available. The estimated annual total wet deposition of sulfate in Seoul is found to be 3450 and 3770 kg km−2 yr−1 without and with consideration of the oxidation of SO2 in clouds, respectively, which is quite comparable with the measured value of 3510 kg km−2 yr−1. This result suggests that the present model can be used more practically in the field of acid rain study, especially in cases of the lack of monitoring sites for wet deposition.