Investigating the influence of meteorological factors on particulate matters: A case study based on path analysis

The meteorological factors play an important role to influence the concentration of the particulate matters. The path analysis method is employed to investigate the influence of meteorological factors (including atmospheric temperature (AT), relative humidity (RH), and wind speed (WS)) on particulate matters (including PM2.5 and PM10) in Dazhou city. The following results are obtained: (1) The direct path coefficients of AT, RH, and WS to PM2.5 and PM10 are all negative, which means that the concentration of particulate matters would be declined following with the increasing of AT, RH, and WS. (2) The meteorological factors would explain about 17.43 and 16.52% variance of PM2.5 and PM10, respectively. However, 82.57% variance of PM2.5 and 83.48% variance of PM10 would be determined by non-meteorological factors. (3) AT and WS are the most important meteorological factors to modulate the concentration of particulate matters. AT would explain 12.73 and 8.78% variance of PM2.5 and PM10, respectively. WS would explain 6.54 and 8.69% variance of PM2.5 and PM10, respectively. (4) According to the absolute value of the determination coefficients, the main influence on the concentration of PM2.5 is the direct influence by AT and the impact on the concentration of PM10 is by the combined contribution of meteorological factors.