Atmospheric Station

This China Project's atmospheric research is committed to building observationally validated, fundamental research on the physical and chemical dimensions of China’s atmospheric environment and the emissions that influence it, at local, regional, continental, and global scales. In addition to the observational research described below, it includes modeling research described here.

In November 2004, a team led by Harvard's J. William Munger (School of Engineering and Applied Sciences) and Tsinghua's HAO Jiming (Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, DESE) deployed a permanent observational station for use in atmospheric research, including the China Project's GEOS-CHEM modeling activities. Since that time, the station has made continuous observations of key trace gases and local meteorological conditions. The station is sited in a rural area north of Beijing to distance it from the influence of individual sources, and to measure a variety of conditions as local meteorology shifts, from relatively clean background air to polluted urban plumes. In 2007, Tsinghua assumed full operational responsibility for the station and the Harvard contribution shifted to collaborative analyses of the observations. In 2008, WANG Yuxuan (Tsinghua DESE, formerly of Harvard) took over lead responsibilities on the Tsinghua side of the partnership.

A 2008 paper in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (Wang et al. 2008) used station data and GEOS-Chem to investigate variations of ozone and carbon monoxide in summertime in the Beijing area, contrasting the impacts of monsoonal meteorology in early versus late summer on photochemistry and ozone formation. 

A new paper in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (Wang et al. 2009) uses the data record to differentiate how much of reduced ozone levels observed at the station during the Beijing Olympics can be attributed to policy-driven restrictions of emissions, and how much to natural meteorological conditions.