Black Carbon over the region of Paris (France) : spatial distribution, sources, and trends

Road traffic and domestic wood burning emissions are two major soot-containing aerosol source contributions to particulate pollution in our cities. A better characterization of these sources should provide useful information for policy makers attempting assessment, implementation and monitoring of air pollution abatement strategies aimed at issues affecting human health with additional benefits for climate change. As part of the PRIMEQUAL “PREQUALIF” and ADEME “REBECCA” projects, a dense Black Carbon (BC) network has been implemented over the city of Paris with various real-time instruments (Multi-Angle Absorption Photometer, MAAP by THERMO; Multiwavelength Aethalometers by MAGEE Scientific) operating in contrasted locations (rural background, urban background, traffic). To our best knowledge, this is the largest BC network currently operating in a city providing the longest record (>5 years) of measurements and allowing to apportion between fossil fuel (traffic) and domestic heating (wood burning) sources of Black Carbon. This unique database is used here to address, for the first time, spatial distribution, sources, and trends of BC at the scale of a city (Paris) often used as a model to mimic urban pollution of large occidental cities (Beekman et al., 2015)..