Apportionment of Hong Kong

    We present four apportionments for Hong Kong average aerosol, for northern sources in East Asia, two for southern sources there (places first and types first), and one for European sources. The steps are summarized in the table below. The thread for northern sources is shown below, the other threads on separate pages for southern sources place-first, southern sources type-first, and European sources. Links are provided for quick scanning of the threads.

    The thread for northern East Asia is shown below in red italic. It reaches a good fit after adding only two places.

    Step 0, shown below, reveals highest general fits throughout East Asia, supplemented by some good fits in eastern Russia and in Japan/Korea. The two unusually high F-ratios from JK are both from Mallipo, a site on the West Coast of South Korea. This plot offers a good example of the broad-based fits shown for some samples before the crustal and marine components are removed by their floating signatures.

    Step 2 is after sea and crust have been entered. The plot below shows clearly that East Asia and Japan/Korea most resemble the Hong Kong aerosol, with the nod being given to the right-hand side of JK (Seoul and Mallipo). North America and the Atlantic do not match. Europe and Russia come a little closer, but are not as good as EAs and JK. Thus the initial starting point has to be the northern East Asian sources Korea, Mallipo in particular. We decided to restrict the thread to northern sources because they gave an adequate fit.

    Step 3 is after Mallipo (May) is added. Practically everything else collapses. The fit is already good (0.74) but not great.

    Step 4 adds the next-best of the northern East Asian sources, Seoul winter. This improves the fit to 0.67. It also appears to bring several other east Asian sources into contention, but most of their high F-ratios go with negative coefficients, which we do not accept for place-signatures. Thus the thread for northern East Asian sources stops here.

    In a perverse sort of way, the goodness of this northern solution posed a problem, for much of the Honk Kong aerosol obviously originates closer to it than in Korea. We thus tried a southern solution for East Asian sources. That thread is next.

Ahead to Southern Solution, Place-First
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