The Relationship Of Particulate Matter And Visibility Under Different Meteorological Conditions In Seoul, South Korea

To understand the characteristics of the relationship between visibility and particulate matter (PM) in different meteorological conditions, we investigated the contributions of PM and relative humidity (RH) to visibility in Seoul, South Korea. For the period from 2001 to 2018, both PM and RH show descending trends, resulting in a visibility increase. PM has little impact on the hourly variation of visibility, which could be explained more by the RH variability. Meanwhile, the daily change of PM accounts for daily visibility variation. For the monthly variation of visibility, both PM and RH showed similar influence. The correlation coefficients of PM10, PM25, and RH with visibility was -0.486, -0.644, and -0.556, respectively, which became higher during the high PM seasons of spring and winter. The correlation coefficient between PM2.5 and visibility was -0.454 for RH higher than 80%, and -0.780 for RH between 40% and 60%. From 2017 to 2018, there were 10 cases of extreme visibility impairment, among which five cases were incurred by high PM pollution, and two cases were by high humidity. Further analysis with PM chemical composition measurements is required to better understand the characteristics of visibility in Seoul.