A paradox for air pollution controlling in China revealed by “APEC Blue” and “Parade Blue”

A series of strict emission control measures were implemented in Beijing and surrounding regions to ensure good air quality during the 2014 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit and 2015 Grand Military Parade (Parade), which led to blue sky days during these two events commonly referred to as “APEC Blue” and “Parade Blue”. Here we calculated Multi-Axis Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (MAX-DOAS) and Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) NO(2) and HCHO results based on well known DOAS trace gas fitting algorithm and WRF-Chem model (with measured climatology parameter and newest emission inventor) simulated trace gases profiles. We found the NO(2) columns abruptly decreased both Parade (43%) and APEC (21%) compared with the periods before these two events. The back-trajectory cluster analysis and the potential source contribution function (PSCF) proved regional transport from southern peripheral cities plays a key role in pollutants observed at Beijing. The diminishing transport contribution from southern air mass during Parade manifests the real effect of emission control measures on NO(2) pollution. Based on the ratios of HCHO over NO(2) we found there were not only limited the NO(2) pollutant but also suppress the O(3) contaminant during Parade, while O(3) increased during the APEC.