Water activity and activation diameters from hygroscopicity data - Part I: Theory and application to inorganic salts

International audienceA method is described that uses particle hygroscopicity measurements, made with a humidified tandem differential mobility analyzer (HTDMA), to determine solution water activity as a function of composition. The use of derived water activity data in computations determining the ability of aerosols to serve as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) is explored. Results for sodium chloride and ammonium sulfate are shown in Part I. The methodology yields solution water activities and critical dry diameters for ammonium sulfate and sodium chloride in good agreement with previously published data. The approach avoids the assumptions required for application of simplified and modified Köhler equations to predict CCN activity, most importantly, knowledge of the molecular weight and the degree of dissociation of the soluble species. Predictions of the dependence of water activity on the mass fraction of aerosol species are sensitive to the assumed dry density, but predicted critical dry diameters are not

Water activity and activation diameters from hygroscopicity data - Part II: Application to organic species

International audienceA method has been developed for using particle hygroscopicity measurements made with a humidified tandem differential mobility analyzer (HTDMA) to determine water activity as a function of solute weight percent. In Part I, the method was tested for particles composed of sodium chloride and ammonium sulfate. Here, we report results for several atmospherically-relevant organic species: glutaric acid, malonic acid, oxalic acid and levoglucosan. Predicted water activities for aqueous dicarboxylic acid solutions are quite similar in some cases to published estimates and the simplified predictions of Köhler theory, while in other cases substantial differences are found, which we attribute primarily to the semivolatile nature of these compounds that makes them difficult to study with the HTDMA. In contrast, estimates of water activity for levoglucosan solutions compare very well with recently-reported measurements and with published data for aqueous glucose and fructose solutions. For all studied species, the critical dry diameters active at supersaturations between 0.2 and 1% that are computed with the HTDMA-derived water activities are generally within the experimental error (~20%) estimated in previously-published direct measurements using cloud condensation nuclei counters. For individual compounds, the variations in reported solution water activity lead to uncertainties in critical dry diameters of 5-25%, not significantly larger than the uncertainty in the direct measurements. To explore the impact of these uncertainties on modeled aerosol-cloud interactions, we incorporate the variations in estimates of solution water activities into the description of hygroscopic growth of aerosol particles in an adiabatic parcel model and examine the impact on the predicted drop number concentrations. For the limited set of initial conditions examined here, we find that the uncertainties in critical dry diameters for individual species lead to 0-21% changes in drop number concentration, with the largest effects at high aerosol number concentrations and slow updraft velocities. Ammonium sulfate, malonic acid and glutaric acid have similar activation behavior, while glutaric acid and levoglucosan are somewhat less hygroscopic and lead to lower drop number concentrations; sodium chloride is the most easily activated compound. We explain these behaviors in terms of a parameter that represents compound hygroscopicity, and conclude that this parameter must vary by more than a factor of 2 to induce more than a 15% change in activated drop number concentrations. In agreement with earlier studies, our results suggest that the number concentration of activated drops is more sensitive to changes in the input aerosol size and number concentrations and the applied updraft velocity than to modest changes in the aerosol composition and hygroscopic properties

The influence of chemical composition and mixing state of Los Angeles urban aerosol on CCN number and cloud properties

International audienceThe relationship between cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) number and the physical and chemical properties of the atmospheric aerosol distribution is explored for a polluted urban data set from the Study of Organic Aerosols at Riverside I (SOAR-1) campaign conducted at Riverside, California, USA during summer 2005. The mixing state and, to a lesser degree, the average chemical composition are shown to be important parameters in determining the activation properties of those particles around the critical activation diameters for atmospherically-realistic supersaturation values. Closure between predictions and measurements of CCN number at several supersaturations is attempted by modeling a number of aerosol chemical composition and mixing state schemes of increasing complexity. It is shown that a realistic treatment of the state of mixing of the urban aerosol distribution is critical in order to eliminate model bias. Fresh emissions such as elemental carbon and small organic particles must be treated as non-activating and explicitly accounted for in the model scheme. The relative number concentration of these particles compared to inorganics and oxygenated organic compounds of limited hygroscopicity plays an important role in determining the CCN number. Furthermore, expanding the different composition/mixing state schemes to predictions of cloud droplet number concentration in a cloud parcel model highlights the dependence of cloud optical properties on the state of mixing and hygroscopic properties of the different aerosol modes, but shows that the relative differences between the different schemes are reduced compared to those from the CCN model

Organic aerosol and global climate modelling: a review

The present paper reviews existing knowledge with regard to Organic Aerosol (OA) of importance for global climate modelling and defines critical gaps needed to reduce the involved uncertainties. All pieces required for the representation of OA in a global climate model are sketched out with special attention to Secondary Organic Aerosol (SOA): The emission estimates of primary carbonaceous particles and SOA precursor gases are summarized. The up-to-date understanding of the chemical formation and transformation of condensable organic material is outlined. Knowledge on the hygroscopicity of OA and measurements of optical properties of the organic aerosol constituents are summarized. The mechanisms of interactions of OA with clouds and dry and wet removal processes parameterisations in global models are outlined. This information is synthesized to provide a continuous analysis of the flow from the emitted material to the atmosphere up to the point of the climate impact of the produced organic aerosol. The sources of uncertainties at each step of this process are highlighted as areas that require further studies

Is there an aerosol signature of chemical cloud processing?

The formation of sulfate and secondary organic aerosol mass in the aqueous phase (aqSOA) of cloud and fog droplets can significantly contribute to ambient aerosol mass. While tracer compounds give evidence that aqueous-phase processing occurred, they do not reveal the extent to which particle properties have been modified in terms of mass, chemical composition, hygroscopicity, and oxidation state. We analyze data from several field experiments and model studies for six air mass types (urban, biogenic, marine, wild fire biomass burning, agricultural biomass burning, and background air) using aerosol size and composition measurements for particles 13–850&thinsp;nm in diameter. We focus on the trends of changes in mass, hygroscopicity parameter κ, and oxygen-to-carbon (O&thinsp;∕&thinsp;C) ratio due to chemical cloud processing. We find that the modification of these parameters upon cloud processing is most evident in urban, marine, and biogenic air masses, i.e., air masses that are more polluted than very clean air (background air) but cleaner than heavily polluted plumes as encountered during biomass burning. Based on these trends, we suggest that the mass ratio (Rtot) of the potential aerosol sulfate and aqSOA mass to the initial aerosol mass can be used to predict whether chemical cloud processing will be detectable. Scenarios in which this ratio exceeds Rtot ∼ 0.5 are the most likely ones in which clouds can significantly change aerosol parameters. It should be noted that the absolute value of Rtot depends on the considered size range of particles. Rtot is dominated by the addition of sulfate (Rsulf) in all scenarios due to the more efficient conversion of SO2 to sulfate compared to aqSOA formation from organic gases. As the formation processes of aqSOA are still poorly understood, the estimate of RaqSOA is likely associated with large uncertainties. Comparison to Rtot values as calculated for ambient data at different locations validates the applicability of the concept to predict a chemical cloud-processing signature in selected air masses.</p

Can global models ignore the chemical composition of aerosols?

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/94766/1/grl27306.pd

An assessment of aerosol‐cloud interactions in marine stratus clouds based on surface remote sensing

An assessment of aerosol-cloud interactions (ACI) from ground-based remote sensing under coastal stratiform clouds is presented. The assessment utilizes a long-term, high temporal resolution data set from the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program deployment at Pt. Reyes, California, United States, in 2005 to provide statistically robust measures of ACI and to characterize the variability of the measures based on variability in environmental conditions and observational approaches. The average ACIN (= dlnNd/dlna, the change in cloud drop number concentration with aerosol concentration) is 0.48, within a physically plausible range of 0–1.0. Values vary between 0.18 and 0.69 with dependence on (1) the assumption of constant cloud liquid water path (LWP), (2) the relative value of cloud LWP, (3) methods for retrieving Nd, (4) aerosol size distribution, (5) updraft velocity, and (6) the scale and resolution of observations. The sensitivity of the local, diurnally averaged radiative forcing to this variability in ACIN values, assuming an aerosol perturbation of 500 c-3 relative to a background concentration of 100 cm-3, ranges betwee-4 and -9 W -2. Further characterization of ACI and its variability is required to reduce uncertainties in global radiative forcing estimates

Oxalic acid in clear and cloudy atmospheres: Analysis of data from International Consortium for Atmospheric Research on Transport and Transformation 2004

Oxalic acid is often the leading contributor to the total dicarboxylic acid mass in ambient organic aerosol particles. During the 2004 International Consortium for Atmospheric Research on Transport and Transformation (ICARTT) field campaign, nine inorganic ions (including SO_4^(2−)) and five organic acid ions (including oxalate) were measured on board the Center for Interdisciplinary Remotely Piloted Aircraft Studies (CIRPAS) Twin Otter research aircraft by a particle-into-liquid sampler (PILS) during flights over Ohio and surrounding areas. Five local atmospheric conditions were studied: (1) cloud-free air, (2) power plant plume in cloud-free air with precipitation from scattered clouds overhead, (3) power plant plume in cloud-free air, (4) power plant plume in cloud, and (5) clouds uninfluenced by local pollution sources. The aircraft sampled from two inlets: a counterflow virtual impactor (CVI) to isolate droplet residuals in clouds and a second inlet for sampling total aerosol. A strong correlation was observed between oxalate and SO_4^(2−) when sampling through both inlets in clouds. Predictions from a chemical cloud parcel model considering the aqueous-phase production of dicarboxylic acids and SO_4^(2−) show good agreement for the relative magnitude of SO_4^(2−) and oxalate growth for two scenarios: power plant plume in clouds and clouds uninfluenced by local pollution sources. The relative contributions of the two aqueous-phase routes responsible for oxalic acid formation were examined; the oxidation of glyoxylic acid was predicted to dominate over the decay of longer-chain dicarboxylic acids. Clear evidence is presented for aqueous-phase oxalic acid production as the primary mechanism for oxalic acid formation in ambient aerosols