The Taj Mahal—an iconic World Heritage monument built of white marble—has become discolored with time, due, in part, to high levels of particulate matter (PM) soiling its surface. Such discoloration has required extensive and costly treatment and despite previous interventions to reduce pollution in its vicinity, the haze and darkening persists.

Original Source

Within the framework of air quality studies at the megacity scale, highly time-resolved volatile organic compound (C2–C8) measurements were performed in downtown Paris (urban background sites) from January to November 2010. This unique dataset included non-methane hydrocarbons (NMHCs) and aromatic/oxygenated species (OVOCs) measured by a GC-FID (gas chromatograph with a flame ionization detector) and a PTR-MS (proton transfer reaction – mass spectrometer), respectively.

Although China's severe air pollution has become a focus in the field of atmospheric chemistry and the mechanisms of urban air pollution there have been researched extensively, few field sampling campaigns have been conducted at remote background sites in China, where air pollution characteristics on a larger scale are highlighted.

There is a lack of knowledge of how biomass burning aerosols in the tropics age, including those in the fire-prone Northern Territory in Australia. This paper reports chemical characterization and aging of aerosols monitored during the one month long SAFIRED (Savannah Fires in the Early Dry Season) field study, with an emphasis on chemical signature and aging of organic aerosols.

Winter has the worst air pollution of the year in the megacity of Beijing. Despite extensive winter studies in recent years, our knowledge of the sources, formation mechanisms and evolution of aerosol particles is not complete. Here we have a comprehensive characterization of the sources, variations and processes of submicron aerosols that were measured by an Aerodyne high-resolution aerosol mass spectrometer from 17 December 2013 to 17 January 2014 along with offline filter analysis by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry.

Long-term measurements (from August 2009 to December 2014) of aerosol black carbon mass concentration (MBC) and spectral aerosol optical depth (AOD) were carried out from a high-altitude location, Hanle in western trans-Himalaya as part of the Regional Aerosol Warming Experiment.

Original Source

In order to understand the regional climate implications of aerosols over Indo Gangetic Plains (IGP), a major Indo-US field experiment, Ganges Valley Aerosol Experiment (GVAX) was conducted during 2011– 12. Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) mobile facility (AMF) was deployed at the northern Indo-Gangetic Plain over the high-altitude site, Manora Peak, Nainital (29°21′33.84″N, 79°27′29.27″E, 1980 m amsl) in Central Himalayas, for an year-round measurement of aerosols, clouds and other climate-relevant atmospheric parameters.