Intercomparison of methods to measure the mass concentration of the atmospheric aerosol during INTERCOMP2000—influence of instrumentation and size cuts

Within the EUROTRAC-2 subproject AEROSOL, the intensive field campaign INTERCOMP2000 was conducted to compare aerosol samplers and methods to measure various aerosol properties. Here a comparison of mass concentrations measured with different PM2.5 and PM10 samplers as well as cascade impactors is described. Different filter types were used. In general, the PM2.5 and PM10 mass concentrations obtained on filters agree well. The data agree within 18.1% (PM2.5, all data). If data obtained with the TEOM (18% low) and on Whatman QM-A quartz fibre filters (low face velocity, 38% high) are excluded, PM2.5 data agree within 8.1%. For PM10, the agreement is within 6.6% (again excluding the Whatman QM-A quartz fibre filters, 22% high) or 12.1% (all data). For the impactor samples, the data agreed within 6.3% (excluding the ELPI, which was 92% high) and 8.7% for PM2.5 and PM10.