Visiting the Atmospheric Research Station belongs to Poly U in Hok Tsui

Bimalka, December 2008

Went and visit the Cape D'Aguilar (Hok Tsui) atmospheric research station in the Hong Kong Island, which is belongs to Poly U with Dr. Ka Se Lam (Teresa’s PhD supervisor), Teresa and their research team. This station is located at the southeastern tip of Hong Kong in coastal South China (at a rural site near the sea in a mountain) and used as a Back ground monitoring station. It has been established in 1993 and since then it involves in monitoring air quality levels of CO, O3, AOD (aerosol optical depth), and solar radiation. It also has the multi gas calibrator therefore instruments are getting calibrated automatically every day and data will be received to Poly U every hour. In the early days of monitoring involves SO2, NOx and particulates measurements. These instruments are more sophisticated and sensitive to measure low level of pollutants.

Primary objectives of this monitoring station are to monitor the composition of the atmosphere, document important trends, and study the processes affecting the fate and transport of air pollution in eastern Asia such as Taiwan. Situated on the boundary between the Asian continent and the South China Sea, the station receives continental outflow in winter and maritime inflow in summer, making it suitable for studying both natural and anthropogenic trace gases and aerosols. Dr. Ka Se Lam and his research team visit the site very often and looked after the instruments very carefully; especially for the solar radiation measurements surface of the instrument need to be cleaned and they check for malfunctioning of the instruments.

At the beginning they have involved in monitoring metrological data also however now they have a near by meteorological station managed by Hong Kong Observatory (HKO) which is the designated Meteorological Authority in Hong Kong. Therefore metrological data is available in the website and obtain free of charge for research work. Poly U is conducting a very good relationship with the Environmental Protection Department (EPD). Therefore air quality data is sharing among them for research activities. EPD has installed some of the instruments in this station to measure CO and O3 from last month. This research of EPD will continue for one year. In the past also EPD has conducted such research activities at this site. EPD has 14 air quality monitoring stations including the background monitoring station at Tap Mum. During our stay EDP officials also were in the site carrying out their research activities. It was very motivating to see the research activities carried out by Poly U and also the coordination between the relevant institutes such as EPD with Poly U.