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Multi-AXis-Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (MAX-DOAS) measurements were performed to remote sensing the aerosol vertical profiles in suburb area of Shanghai, China from April to December 2017. The retrieval of aerosol extinction was based on the optimal estimation method combing the measured oxygen dimer O4 absorption with simulation of forward radiative transfer model. It suggests that the employment of O4 correction factor (CFO4) for daily aerosol retrieval should be adjusted, which includes three typical cases that a fixed CFO4, no usage of CFO4 and different CFO4 in the morning and afternoon. In cases of using CFO4, elevation angle dependent CF O 4 ( α ) were further proposed. Moreover, the retrieval results can be improved if the local sounding data of atmospheric temperature and pressure profiles were introduced into the forward radiative transfer model without utilizing additional CFO4. Afterwards, the retrieved Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) and the surface Aerosol Extinction Coefficient (AEC) was in a good agreement with the AOD obtained from sun photometer observations and in-suit PM2.5 concentrations, with a correlation coefficient R of 0.866 and 0.833, respectively. Besides, the vertical AEC profiles retrieved by MAX-DOAS were also validated well by the co-located lidar measurement. It can be found that the particles were mainly distributed below 1 km, and the maximum AEC usually appeared in the lowest 300 m and decreased with the altitudes. The averaged AEC within 1 km varied from 0.20 to 0.75 km−1, 0.25 to 1.08 km−1, 0.55 to 2.45 km−1 and 0.70 to 2.75 km−1 under different air quality of Grade II, III, IV and V. The sounding meteorological parameters and backward trajectories of air masses were integrated to diagnose the influencing factor of AEC at different altitudes, which illustrated that the AEC levels at lowest layer were impacted by the long distance transportation of air pollutants from north-northwest and regional local air pollution nearby during the winter time. The study shows that ground-based MAX-DOAS observation is powerful remote sensing technique to provide better understanding of aerosol properties at both ground surface and higher altitudes.

To investigate on the daytime OH and its implication to fine particle, the long-path differential optical absorption spectroscopy (LP-DOAS) system was employed to observe the main OH precursors of O3, HCHO and HONO, as well as NO2 and NO3 radical from April to August 2013 over Shanghai, China. The main OH production paths from HONO, HCHO and O3 were estimated to be occupied around 57.6%, 30.5% and 11.9% during daytime. The daytime OH radical concentration under steady-state was averaged at 1.02 × 107 molec cm−3, which was significantly impacted by the photolytic processes. The relationship between photolysis frequency j(O1D) and OH radical suggests that heavy fine particle loads can make the photolytic reactions less efficiently and decrease the OH production and concentration. Utilizing CO as the indicator, the part of PM2.5 mass related to primary emitted sources was found less impacted by the OH levels. The contribution of secondary organic aerosol with metrics of O3 was enhanced with the increases of the OH levels, while secondary inorganic part of PM2.5 was favor of the condition that smaller OH concentrations that 5 × 105–5 × 106 molec cm−3. Meantime, a simplified multivariate model was employed to evaluate the influences of OH levels on different parts of fine particles related to different emission and sources. Normalized by solar radiation, this part of OH unrelated to radiation was found to be inversely related to the PM2.5, which indicates the self-cleansing capability of the atmosphere.

Nitrous acid (HONO) is the primary source of hydroxyl radical (OH) during daytime and significantly contribute to the formation of secondary organic compounds (SOA) and atmospheric oxidizing capacity. One month simultaneous observations at ship channel site (SCS) and background site (BGS) in Shanghai, China were conducted to aim at estimating the HONO concentration from ship direct emission and analyzing the nocturnal budget of HONO during non-clean period in SCS. The HONO average concentrations at both BGS and SCS during non-clean period were 0.37 ± 0.42 ppbv and 0.91 ± 0.78 ppbv, respectively. The diurnal variation of HONO from ship direct emission presented a double-peak trend with a maximum value 0.38 ± 0.18 ppbv at 07:00 in the morning. The proportion of HONO emission from ships was in a range of 43%~74% in the daytime, while, the proportions were 42%~63% and 14%~28% at night in clean and non-clean periods, respectively. HONO nocturnal conversion frequencies from NO2 were 0.29%/h at both sites in non-clean period, during which the deposition velocities of HONO were 0.21–1.4 cm/s and 0.34–1.4 cm/s at BGS and SCS, respectively.