In order to clarify the intercontinental and regional transport of air pollutants (for instance, acid pollutants, Asian dust, biomass burning and mercury), and to collect the atmospheric baseline data, the Lulin Atmospheric Background Station (LABS, 2862 m MSL), located at Mt. Lulin in central Taiwan, has been operated since 13 April 2006. This project integrates the researchers in the fields of precipitation chemistry, gas chemistry, aerosol chemistry, atmospheric mercury and radiation to test and maintain the instruments, conduct data analysis and construct long-term database. Up to now, total on-site maintenance (includes regular and mobile) are 74 times. The data acquisition rate for aerosols, radiation and meteorological instruments are greater than 90 %, whereas atmospheric mercury and trace gases instruments shows lower rates, due to their complexities.
During the project conducting period (2017/1-2018/5), the average concentrations of CO, O3 and PM2.5 are about 130.1 ppb, 44.9 ppb and 7.8 μg m-3, respectively. The average pH value of precipitation is 5.43. The average concentrations of mercury such as GEM, RGM and PHg are about 1.58 ng m-3, 19.0 pg m-3 and 16.4 pg m-3, respectively. Monthly variation shows the high concentration of pollutants generally occurred during spring time, especially in March. Integrating trajectory analysis and chemical component analysis, we suggest the high concentration events are most likely associated with the biomass burning from SE Asia. The atmospheric background values for CO and PM10 in Lulin are estimated to be about 130.1 ppb and 5.0 μg m-3.
In addition, we have established intensive international collaborations with USEPA, NOAA, NASA, Japan, and EU countries. We have also participated international experiments or campaigns including 7-SEAS, and Japan Mt. Fuji Project. The LABS is now part of global networks, for instance, American Mercury network/AMNet, NASA/AERONET, NASA/ MPLNET, NOAA/GMD/CCGG sampling network. The information about LABS can be found at the web site, http://lulin.tw.
