Variations of PM10 and its relationship with 7Be and 210Pb measurements at Malaga (Southeastern coast of Spain)

Abstract

INTRODUCTION Levels of particulate matter fraction PM10 were monitored between 2009 and 2011 in Malaga (Spain) in one of the Atmospheric Pollution Monitoring network managed by the Environmental Health Service of the Andalusian Government. Long-term measurements of cosmogenic radionuclides such as 7Be provide important data in studying global atmospheric processes and comparing environmental impact of radioactivity from man-made sources to natural ones. 7Be is a natural radionuclide tracer of aerosols originated over a range of high altitudes in the atmosphere. On the other hand, 210Pb is produced by radioactive decay from its progenitor, 222Rn, which emanates primarily from land surface. Therefore, 210Pb in the air is an effective tracer of the continental surface air mass. The variation of the data with time was studied by time series analyses and seasonal patterns were identified. The study of air back-trajectories were computed by means of the Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectories (HYSPLIT) trajectory model (Draxler, 1994) using meteorological data supplied by the US National Climatic Data Centre