Source Apportionment of Atmospheric Iron in Northern China Based on 3‐Year Continuous Measurements
Abstract Atmospheric iron (Fe) impacts atmospheric chemistry and marine ecosystems. However, the scarcity of long‐term observations limits insights into its source variations that may reflect emission controls. From September 2016 to December 2019, Fe in atmospheric fine particles (PM 2.5 ) was measured in Beijing. Positive Matrix Factorization was used to apportion Fe sources. Results showed nearly 50% of Fe originated from anthropogenic sources, primarily industrial processes (30%) and coal combustion (17%). Although PM 2.5 concentrations decreased significantly, the Fe component of PM 2.5 did not show a significant decline. Instead, annual source contributions changed with dust source rising from 45% to 61%, while combustion sources decreased from 27% to 12%. Dust Fe aligned better with monthly MERRA‐2 dust extinction coefficients than hourly data, suggesting the limitations of MERRA‐2 in resolving hourly changes in dust. Anthropogenic Fe correlated with labile Fe, indicating anthropogenic emission reductions in Asia could decrease labile Fe supply to downwind oceans.
Authors
- Haoran Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8751-5407)
- Yue Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1579-6278)
- Bo Zhu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3504-7488)
- Yaxin Xiang
- Shuangling Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5060-1013)
- Fei Chai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5664-9592)
- Mei Zheng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9851-5309)
- Xuehua Fan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3754-0468)
- Yinan Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8714-2105)
- Tong Fei Zhu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2752-7924)
- Yuntao Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1579-5948)
- Xiaomeng Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3178-9441)
- Tianle Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2611-9723)
- Caiqing Yan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5523-4136)
Institutions
- Shandong University (CN)
- Xiamen University (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Peking University (CN)
- Ministry of Natural Resources (CN)
- Second Institute of Oceanography (CN)
- Institute of Atmospheric Physics (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Geophysical Research Letters
- Published
- 2025-10-28
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1029/2024gl114462
- Citations
- 2
- Primary Topic
- Marine and coastal ecosystems
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 3.59
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China