A principal component analysis of sulfur concentrations in the western United States

Abstract Data from a 40 site network of air samplers in the western United States were used in a principal components analysis to obtain spatial patterns of the inter-site correlations of sulfur concentrations. After rotation of the initial eigenvectors, two large regions were identified which accounted for 33.1% of the variance in the data. Three other smaller regions were identified which also had significant variance. The first eigenvector included all sites in the southern part of the network and was attributed to copper smelter emissions in Arizona and New Mexico. The second eigenvector included sites in the northern great plains and was attributed to episodic incursions of sulfur from the east. The third, fourth and fifth eigenvectors were attributed to locally important conditions.

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