Source contributions to carbonaceous aerosol concentrations in Korea

We estimated the source contributions to carbonaceous aerosol concentration in Korea on the basis of Intercontinental Chemical Transport Experiment Phase B (INTEX-B) anthropogenic emissions and satellite-derived biomass burning emissions by using a nested version of GEOS-Chem with a spatial resolution of 0.5°×0.667° for the period March 2006–February 2007. First, we evaluated the model by comparing the simulated and observed aerosol concentrations at East Asia Network (EANET) sites and at a site in Korea. The results indicate that the model reproduces the variability and magnitudes of the observed SO₄ ²⁻, NO₃ ⁻, and NH₄ ⁺ concentrations in Korea and those of the observed PM₁₀ concentrations in East Asia. However, the organic carbon (OC) and black carbon (BC) aerosol concentrations estimated by the model are lower than those observed in Korea by a factor of 2, especially in winter. This underestimation is likely due to extremely low domestic anthropogenic emissions and lack in seasonal variation. Source adjustments using a simple fitting and the Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) monthly allocation factors for seasonal variation yield significantly improved model results (R² increased from 0.58 to 0.84), which can then be used to estimate the source contributions to the OC and BC concentrations in Korea. We found that domestic anthropogenic emissions are the most important factors, contributing 74% (9% from fossil fuels and 65% from biofuels) and 78% (42% from fossil fuels and 36% from biofuels) to the OC and BC concentrations, respectively, on an annual mean basis in Korea. The trans-boundary transport of Chinese sources is another important factor, contributing 13% and 20% to the OC and BC concentrations, respectively. The contributions of wildfires and biogenic sources to the annual mean carbonaceous aerosol concentration in Korea are relatively small (4% and 6%, respectively).