Long-term trends in the East-Asian continental pollution outbreaks and background air quality around Taiwan The East-Asia (EA), in particular the eastern and northern China, is one of the major source regions of air pollutants in the world. The pollutants transported with the EA continental outflows could have significant impacts to the atmospheric composition and air quality in the downwind areas. Taiwan is under the lee side of the winter monsoons originating in the EA continent and, consequently, receives air pollutants transported by the monsoons. Long-term observation of the atmospheric composition at background sites deserves our efforts because it could provide crucial evidences for the changes in our environment.

Production, transformation and transport of ozone and aerosols with implications for air pollution control strategies Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone (O3) are the major air pollutants in not only Taiwan but also most of the urban areas in the world. Formulation of an effective control strategy for the ambient levels of PM2.5 and O3 is thereby a great challenge. Both O3 and a large fraction of PM2.5 are known as secondary pollutants, which are products of atmospheric chemical reactions among the gaseous precursors emitted from respective pollution sources. An in-depth study upon the physical and chemical processes will improve our scientific knowledge for the formulation of strategies of pollution reduction.