We examine the signatures of particulate matter concentration: 

• S.A. Estavillo, E. Vallar, M.C. Galvez, P.M. Ong, R.C. Batac, A Complexity View of Atmospheric Particulate Matter Concentration, accepted in Int. J. Mod. Phys. C (2024).

In our newly accepted work, we observed power-law regimes in the distributions of yearly PM2.5 concentrations from various cities in the world. Using a simple analytic model, we recover these power-laws and the left tails of the distributions. 

This cross-sectional (i.e. across various cities) analysis complements the previous longitudinal (i.e. within-city data over extended periods of time) analyses that also show power-law regimes. 

These works appear to indicate that the atmosphere, while heavily affected by anthropogenic factors (primarily, urbanization) that cause pollution, is a complex system manifesting self-organized criticality (SOC). 

S.A. Estavillo finished her BS Premed Physics from the De La Salle University (DLSU). E. Vallar, M.C. Galvez, P.M. Ong, and R.C. Batac are faculty members from the Department of Physics, College of Science (COS) of the DLSU.