ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Investigating the Relationship between Air
Pollutants and Meteorology: A Canonical
Correlation Analysis
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Mosul University, Environmental Research Centre, Mosul, IRAQ
Submission date: 2022-03-06
Final revision date: 2022-06-25
Acceptance date: 2022-07-05
Online publication date: 2022-11-02
Publication date: 2022-12-08
Corresponding author
Abdulmuhsin S. Shihab
Environmental Research Center, Mosul University, ERC, Mosul University, +964, Mosul, Iraq
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2022;31(6):5841-5849
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ABSTRACT
In order to characterize the most important meteorological parameters that determine air pollutants'
behavior, canonical correlation analysis was conducted. Meteorological parameters include temperature,
rainfall, relative humidity, wind speed and wind direction. On the other hand, air pollutants include
O3, NO, NO2, SO2, CO, CH4, non-methane hydrocarbons (NMHC) and PM10. The study was conducted
in Mosul city, northern Iraq. The data were collected using a fixed monitoring station and ultrasonic
weather station placed on the side of a separate main heavy traffic road. The first two canonical
functions extracted by the analysis explained more than 95% of the variance in air pollutants. The first
canonical function shows high canonical correlation coefficient between its pair canonical variates
(0.849, p<0.001), versus 0.445 (p<0.001) between the pair variates of the second function. The results
of the canonical correlation analysis highlighted that temperature was the major contributor in the
explanatory capacity of meteorological parameters compared with the other parameters. On the other
hand, ozone had a major contribution to the explanatory capacity of air pollutants compared with the
other pollutants. The major conclusion is the ability of canonical correlation analysis to reduce the input
parameters mainly to temperature and ozone in this study.