Four storms with sub-events: sampling and analysis

Analysis of ion concentration of samples taken sequentially during a storm event is important in order to reveal the relation between the atmospheric conditions and ion concentrations in each sub-event. This study presents the interrelationship among the chemical composition parameters and atmospheric variables for four storm events that were sampled in Istanbul during a) January 21-23, 2004 b) November 9-11, 2003 c) February 12-13, 2004 and d) October 27-28, 2003. These events lasted 53.3, 47.9, 27.5 and 13.2 h and the number of collected samples for each event was 22, 14, 7 and 4, in order. Generally values of pH and concentrations of ions in the first sub-events for all four cases were found higher than those of the other sub-event samples taken in sequence owing to the strong initial washout of the atmosphere by raindrops. Precipitation events a and c include rain and snow together where precipitation started as rain and continued as snow after 16th and 3rd sub-events. Higher concentration of ions in the snow in comparison with that of rain sub-events samples can be explained by more efficient below cloud scavenging of atmospheric constituents, especially aerosol particles, by snowflakes. In general, all of the ions sampled in the sub-events for four storms have variability similar to each other, with high correlation coefficient among themselves. Cl(-) and SO(4)(2-) were found to be the dominant ions in average overall sub-events. Calculated NSS concentration values of ions indicated that the main source of SO(4)(2-) was industrial and domestic emissions, most of the Ca(2+) and K(+) came from soil, nearly half of the Mg(2+) and all of the Cl(-) originated from sea.