Abstract:
Sulfur Dioxide is considered as a major criteria pollutant. Certain sources impart in direct SO2 addition into the atmosphere, for instance coal fired power plants, metal smelting industries, biomass burning & volcanoes. Rising concentrations of SO2 is a major threat and is now widely included in health risk assessment studies. Satellite observations of atmospheric Sulfur Dioxide (SO2) are obtained over the region of Pakistan throughout the time span of 2005–2016. The data was acquired from Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) , nadir veiw, on-board NASA Aura satellite. DOAS (Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy) based algorithm was utilized in order to retrieve SO2 vertical column densities. In addition to spatio-temporal analysis of SO2 column densities, seasonal discrepancies over major metropolitan cities and areas of Pakistan are evaluated and discussed. The year 2008 & 2011 brought a significant rise in the levels of SO2 over Pakistan originally transported as a result of Dalaffilla and Nabro volcano eruption, overall affecting East Africa, the Middle East and South Asian continents of the globe. Seasonally highest SO2 concentrations were obsered in the month of december. An inclusive escalation of about 78% in SO2 concentrations for a period of 2005-2016 was concluded over Pakistan. The economic prosperity in recent years which includes improvements in energy, industrial and transportaion sector are main forces for boosted emmsion records. Overall a significant correlation of 0.89 between oil consumption and SO2 values indicated that energy sector is the major contributor in SO2 pollution.
