Ekstremalnie wysokie stężenie zanieczyszczeń powietrza w Nowym Sączu w dniach od 23 stycznia do 1 lutego 2006 r. i ich przyczyny

Abstract

The issue of high concentrations of air pollution and their synoptic conditions is an important research problem which has been studied over many years in different parts of the world. Unfortunately, previous studies were conducted mainly in highly industrialised and urbanised cities. The main goal of this work is to clarify the causes of the extremely high concentrations of air pollutants in Nowy Sącz that occurred in the period from 23 January to 1 February 2006, i.e. the strongest episode of pollution recorded in southern Poland in 2005-2014. The study was based on data consisting of average daily and hourly concentrations of PM10, sulful dioxide and nitrogen oxides obtained from the websites of the Regional Inspectorates for Environmental Protection in Kraków, as well as an analysis of the ERA-Interim reanalysis and high resolution gridded dataset CARPATCLIM. The results showed that the episode of very high concentrations of air pollutants was associated both with the local land relief, which fosters the stagnation of cool air, as well as extremely unfavourable synoptic conditions.