SEVEN-DAY CYCLE IN THE PARAMETERS OF ATMOSPHERIC AEROSOLS ACCORDING TO THE UKRAINIAN AERONET STATIONS DATA

• Main Author: A. V. Soina
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Institute of Radio Astronomy 2019-06-01
• Series: Radio Physics and Radio Astronomy
• Subjects: aerosol optical thickness (aot); aerosols; “weekend effect”; atmosphere; cross-correlation; anthropogenic impact
• Online Access: http://rpra-journal.org.ua/index.php/ra/article/view/1311

Purpose: The work is aimed at searching, analyzing and comparison of weekly cycles in the behavior of optical characteristics of atmospheric aerosols, namely, the aerosol optical thickness in the regions of Ukraine with different degrees of anthropogenic load on the environment. Design/methodology/approach: To search for the seven-day variations, the data were used from the worldwide aerosol monitoring network AERONET, whose activity is based on the Cimel CE-318 automated unified solar photometer robot (France). An array of annual measurements of the aerosol optical thickness in the two spectral channels – 440 and 870 nm (hereinafter AOT440 and AOT870), in 2014 was analyzed. The monitoring data of two Ukrainian stations were compared. The first is located in Kyiv, the second – in the village of Martove, Pechenihy district, Kharkiv region. Since the data of the solar photometer are discrete, the method of superposing epochs was chosen for their statistical processing. Findings: As a result of calculations of the AOT440 and AOT870 parameters, the presence of seven-day variations in these parameters in both regions was established. In order to verify the similarity of the “weekend effect” in variations in the concentration of aerosols in the atmosphere over the city of Kyiv and the village of Martove, the maximum values of the mutual correlation coefficients of the parameters under study were determined. It is established that the correlation coefficient for the two series of the AOT440 parameter average values, calculated according to the two stations data, is approximately 0.7, and of the AOT870 reaches 0.9. These results suggest that the manifestations of the “weekend effect” in variations in the concentration of aerosols both over an ecologically clean area (Martove village) and over the industrially developed city of Kyiv are almost identical. Conclusions: The presence of seven-day variations in the parameters of atmospheric aerosols AOT440 and AOT870 at two observation points in Ukraine has been established, the maximum average values of the parameters recorded are observed on Friday. The analysis showed the high degree of correlation of the results of observations at two stations. Given the varying degree of anthropogenic load of the urbanized region and the recreational zone of Ukraine in which the stations are located, and the high similarity of the seven-day cycles of the parameters AOT440 and AOT870 recorded in 2014, it can be argued that the previous studies findings on the global nature of human influence on the environment were confirmed.