Dust emissions from a tunnel-ventilated broiler poultry shed with fresh and partially reused litter

Dust emissions from large-scale, tunnel-ventilated poultry sheds could have negative health and environmental impacts. Despite this fact, the literature concerning dust emissions from tunnel-ventilated poultry sheds in Australia and overseas is relatively scarce. Dust measurements were conducted during two consecutive production cycles at a single broiler shed on a poultry farm near Ipswich, Queensland. Fresh litter was employed during the first cycle and partially reused litter was employed during the second cycle. This provided an opportunity to study the effect that partial litter reuse has on dust emissions. Dust levels were characterised by the number concentration of suspended particles having a diameter between 0.5 and 20 μm and by the mass concentration of dust particles of less than 10 μm diameter (PM10) and 2.5 μm diameter (PM2.5). In addition, we measured the number size distributions of dust particles. The average concentration and emission rate of dust was higher when partially reused litter was used in the shed than when fresh litter was used. In addition, we found that dust particles emitted from the shed with partially reused litter were finer than the particles emitted with fresh litter. Although the change in litter properties is certainly contributing to this observed variability, other factors such as ventilation rate and litter moisture content are also likely to be involved

Low-Volatility Vapors and New Particle Formation Over the Southern Ocean During the Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition

During summer, the Southern Ocean is largely unaffected by anthropogenic emissions, which makes this region an ideal place to investigate marine natural aerosol sources and processes. A better understanding of natural aerosol is key to constrain the preindustrial aerosol state and reduce the aerosol radiative forcing uncertainty in global climate models. We report the concentrations of gaseous sulfuric acid, iodic acid, and methanesulfonic acid (MSA) together with a characterization of new particle formation (NPF) events over a large stretch of the Southern Ocean. Measurements were conducted on board the Russian icebreaker Akademik Tryoshnikov from January to March 2017. Iodic acid is characterized by a particular diurnal cycle with reduced concentration around noon, suggesting a lower formation yield when solar irradiance is higher. Gaseous MSA does not have a diurnal cycle and measured concentrations in gas and condensed phase are compatible with this species being primarily produced via heterogeneous oxidation of dimethyl sulfide and subsequent partitioning into the gas phase. We also found that NPF in the boundary layer is mainly driven by sulfuric acid but it occurred very rarely over the vast geographical area probed and did not contribute to the cloud condensation nuclei budget in a directly observable manner. Despite the near absence of NPF events in the boundary layer, Aitken mode particles were frequently measured, supporting the hypothesis of a free tropospheric source. Iodic acid and MSA were not found to participate in nucleation, however, MSA may contribute to aerosol growth via heterogeneous formation in the aqueous phase.Peer reviewe

Tracing devastating fires in Portugal to a snow archive in the Swiss Alps: a case study

Recent large wildfires, such as those in Portugal in 2017, have devastating impacts on societies, economy, ecosystems and environments. However, wildfires are a natural phenomenon, which has been exacerbated by land use during the past millennia. Ice cores are one of the archives preserving information on fire occurrences over these timescales. A difficulty is that emission sensitivity of ice cores is often unknown, which constitutes a source of uncertainty in the interpretation of such archives. Information from specific and well-documented case studies is therefore useful to better understand the spatial representation of ice-core burning records. The wildfires near Pedrógão Grande in central Portugal in 2017 provided a test bed to link a fire event to its footprint left in a high-alpine snowpack considered a surrogate for high-alpine ice-core sites. Here, we (1) analysed black carbon (BC) and microscopic charcoal particles deposited in the snowpack close to the high-alpine research station Jungfraujoch in the Swiss Alps; (2) calculated backward trajectories based on ERA-Interim reanalysis data and simulated the transport of these carbonaceous particles using a global aerosol-climate model; and (3) analysed the fire spread, its spatial and temporal extent, and its intensity with remote-sensing (e.g. MODIS) Active Fire and Burned Area products. According to modelled emissions of the FINN v1.6 database, the fire emitted a total amount of 203.5 t BC from a total burned area of 501 km2 as observed on the basis of satellite fire products. Backward trajectories unambiguously linked a peak of atmospheric-equivalent BC observed at the Jungfraujoch research station on 22 June – with elevated levels until 25 June – with the highly intensive fires in Portugal. The atmospheric signal is in correspondence with an outstanding peak in microscopic charcoal observed in the snow layer, depositing nearly as many charcoal particles as during an average year in other ice archives. In contrast to charcoal, the amount of atmospheric BC deposited during the fire episode was minor due to a lack of precipitation. Simulations with a global aerosol-climate model suggest that the observed microscopic charcoal particles originated from the fires in Portugal and that their contribution to the BC signal in snow was negligible. Our study revealed that microscopic charcoal can be transported over long distances (1500 km) and that snow and ice archives are much more sensitive to distant events than sedimentary archives, for which the signal is dominated by local fires. The findings are important for future ice-core studies as they document that, for BC as a fire tracer, the signal preservation depends on precipitation. Single events, like this example, might not be preserved due to unfavourable meteorological conditions

Organic volume fraction and hygroscopic growth factor of nascent Sea Spray Aerosol (SSA) measured using VH-TDMA during the Surface Ocean Aerosol Production (SOAP) study to the Chatham Rise (east of New Zealand) onboard the RV Tangaroa in 2012

The SOAP voyage examined air-sea interactions over the productive waters of the Chatham Rise, east of New Zealand onboard the RV Tangaroa (New Zealand National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, Wellington) from February 12 to March 7 (Law et al., 2017: doi:10.5194/acp-17-13645-2017). 23 seawater samples were collected throughout the voyage for the purpose of generating nascent SSA. Seawater samples were collected from the ocean surface during workboat operations (approximately 10 cm depth) or from the mixed layer (3 - 12 m depth, always less than the measured mixed layer depth) or deep water samples. Surface samples were collected in prewashed 5L PTFE bottles, subsurface measurements were colected in Niskin bottles onboard a CTD rosette. Nascent SSA was generated in-situ in a 0.45 m3 cylindrical polytetrafluoroethylene chamber housing four sintered glass filters with porosities between 16 and 250 μm (Cravigan et al., 2019: https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2019-797). Dried and filtered compressed air was passed through the glass filters at a flow rate of 15.5 ± 3 L/min and resulting SSA was sampled from the headspace of the chamber. The volatility and hygroscopicity of nascent SSA was determined with a volatility and hygroscopicity tandem differential mobility analyser (VH-TDMA) (Johnson et al., 2004: doi:10.1016/j.jaerosci.2003.10.008, 2008: doi:10.1016/j.jaerosci.2008.05.005). A diffusion drier was used to dry the sample flow to 20 ± 5 % RH prior to characterisation by the VH-TDMA. The VH-TDMA was also used to calculate the organic volume fraction (Cravigan et al., 2019: https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2019-797). The VH-TDMA used two TSI 3010 condensation particle counters. The aerosol sample flow rate for each scanning mobility particle sizer was 1 L/min, resulting in a total inlet flow of 2 L/min, the sheath flow for the pre-DMA, V-DMA and H-DMA were 11, 6 and 6 L/min, respectively. The SSA volatile fraction was computed by measuring the diameter of preselected SSA upon heating by a thermodenuder up to 500 degree C, in temperature increments of 5 degree C - 50 degree C. After heating the SSA hygroscopic growth factor at 90% RH was measured. All VH-TDMA data were inverted using the TDMAinv algorithm (Gysel et al., 2009: doi:10.1016/j.jaerosci.2008.07.013). The hygroscopic growth factor, semi-volatile organic volume fraction and low volatility organic volume fraction were determined as outlined in (Cravigan et al., 2019: doi:10.5194/acp-2019-797). The seawater chlorophyll-a concentration was measured by filtering 2 litres of sample water onto GF/F Whatman filters, with immediate freezing in liquid nitrogen and subsequent analysis within 3 months of collection. Filters were ground and chlorophyll-a extracted in 90 % acetone with concentration determined by a calibrated fluorometer (Perkin-Elmer), with an analytical precision of 0.001 mg/m3 (Law et al., 2011: doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2010.10.018)

Ion Beam Analysis (IBA) of submicron nascent Sea Spray Aerosol (SSA) measured during the Surface Ocean Aerosol Production (SOAP) study to the Chatham Rise (east of New Zealand) onboard the RV Tangaroa in 2012

The SOAP voyage examined air-sea interactions over the productive waters of the Chatham Rise, east of New Zealand onboard the RV Tangaroa (New Zealand National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, Wellington) from February 12 to March 7 (Law et al., 2017: doi:10.5194/acp-17-13645-2017). 23 seawater samples were collected throughout the voyage for the purpose of generating nascent SSA. Seawater samples were collected from the ocean surface during workboat operations (approximately 10 cm depth) or from the mixed layer (3 - 12 m depth, always less than the measured mixed layer depth) or deep water samples. Surface samples were collected in prewashed 5L PTFE bottles, subsurface measurements were colected in Niskin bottles onboard a CTD rosette. Nascent SSA was generated in-situ in a 0.45 m3 cylindrical polytetrafluoroethylene chamber housing four sintered glass filters with porosities between 16 and 250 μm (Cravigan et al., 2019: https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2019-797). Dried and filtered compressed air was passed through the glass filters at a flow rate of 15.5 ± 3 L/min and resulting SSA was sampled from the headspace of the chamber. Filters were collected for compositional analysis using transmission Fourier Transform Infra Red (FTIR) and Ion Beam analysis (IBA). The nascent SSA was sampled through a 1 μm sharp cut cyclone (SCC 2.229PM1, BGI Inc., Waltham, Massachusetts) and collected on Teflon filters, with the sample confined to deposit on a 10 mm circular area. Back filter blanks were used to characterise the contamination during handling, and before analysis samples were dehydrated to remove all water, including SSA hydrates, as described in (Frossard and Russell, 2012: doi:10.1021/es3032083). Filter samples underwent simultaneous particle induced X-ray emission (PIXE) and gamma ray emission (PIGE) analysis (Cohen et al., 2004: doi:10.1016/j.nimb.2004.01.043). Si was the only compound with blank measurements above the IBA detection limit. The measured S mass was used to calculate the SO4 mass, all S was assumed to be in the form of SO4. The filter exposed area (0.785 cm2) was used to convert inorganic areal concentrations into total mass. The inorganic mass (IM) was computed as the sum of Na, Mg, SO4, Cl, K, Ca, Zn, Br and Sr. The seawater chlorophyll-a concentration was measured by filtering 2 litres of sample water onto GF/F Whatman filters, with immediate freezing in liquid nitrogen and subsequent analysis within 3 months of collection. Filters were ground and chlorophyll-a extracted in 90 % acetone with concentration determined by a calibrated fluorometer (Perkin-Elmer), with an analytical precision of 0.001 mg/m3 (Law et al., 2011: doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2010.10.018)

Fourier Transform Infra-Red spectroscopy (FTIR) of submicron nascent Sea Spray Aerosol (SSA) measured during the Surface Ocean Aerosol Production (SOAP) study to the Chatham Rise (east of New Zealand) onboard the RV Tangaroa in 2012

The SOAP voyage examined air-sea interactions over the productive waters of the Chatham Rise, east of New Zealand onboard the RV Tangaroa (New Zealand National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, Wellington) from February 12 to March 7 (Law et al., 2017: doi:10.5194/acp-17-13645-2017). 23 seawater samples were collected throughout the voyage for the purpose of generating nascent SSA. Seawater samples were collected from the ocean surface during workboat operations (approximately 10 cm depth) or from the mixed layer (3 - 12 m depth, always less than the measured mixed layer depth) or deep water samples. Surface samples were collected in prewashed 5L PTFE bottles, subsurface measurements were colected in Niskin bottles onboard a CTD rosette. Nascent SSA was generated in-situ in a 0.45 m3 cylindrical polytetrafluoroethylene chamber housing four sintered glass filters with porosities between 16 and 250 μm (Cravigan et al., 2019: https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2019-797). Dried and filtered compressed air was passed through the glass filters at a flow rate of 15.5 ± 3 L/min and resulting SSA was sampled from the headspace of the chamber. Filters were collected for compositional analysis using transmission Fourier Transform Infra Red (FTIR) and Ion Beam analysis (IBA). The nascent SSA was sampled through a 1 μm sharp cut cyclone (SCC 2.229PM1, BGI Inc., Waltham, Massachusetts) and collected on Teflon filters, with the sample confined to deposit on a 10 mm circular area. Back filter blanks were used to characterise the contamination during handling, and before analysis samples were dehydrated to remove all water, including SSA hydrates, as described in (Frossard and Russell, 2012: doi:10.1021/es3032083). FTIR measurements were carried out according to previous marine sampling techniques (Maria et al., 2003: doi:10.1029/2003jd003703; Russell et al., 2010: doi:10.1073/pnas.0908905107). Filter blanks were under the detection limit for the FTIR. The PM1 organic mass fraction from SSA samples collected on filters was computed from the total organic mass from FTIR analysis and the inorganic mass from ion beam analysis, as in (Cravigan et al., 2019: doi:10.5194/acp-2019-797). The uncertainty in the organic mass measured using FTIR is up to 20 % (Maria et al., 2003: doi:10.1029/2003jd003703; Russell et al., 2010: doi:10.1073/pnas.0908905107). The seawater chlorophyll-a concentration was measured by filtering 2 litres of sample water onto GF/F Whatman filters, with immediate freezing in liquid nitrogen and subsequent analysis within 3 months of collection. Filters were ground and chlorophyll-a extracted in 90 % acetone with concentration determined by a calibrated fluorometer (Perkin-Elmer), with an analytical precision of 0.001 mg/m3 (Law et al., 2011: doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2010.10.018)

Deliquescence of nascent Sea Spray Aerosol (SSA) measured using VH-TDMA during the Surface Ocean Aerosol Production (SOAP) study to the Chatham Rise onboard the RV Tangaroa in 2012

The SOAP voyage examined air-sea interactions over the productive waters of the Chatham Rise, east of New Zealand onboard the RV Tangaroa (New Zealand National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, Wellington) from February 12 to March 7 (Law et al., 2017: doi:10.5194/acp-17-13645-2017). 23 seawater samples were collected throughout the voyage for the purpose of generating nascent SSA. Seawater samples were collected from the ocean surface during workboat operations (approximately 10 cm depth) or from the mixed layer (3 - 12 m depth, always less than the measured mixed layer depth) or deep water samples. Surface samples were collected in prewashed 5L PTFE bottles, subsurface measurements were colected in Niskin bottles onboard a CTD rosette. Nascent SSA was generated in-situ in a 0.45 m3 cylindrical polytetrafluoroethylene chamber housing four sintered glass filters with porosities between 16 and 250 μm (Cravigan et al., 2019: https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2019-797). Dried and filtered compressed air was passed through the glass filters at a flow rate of 15.5 ± 3 L/min and resulting SSA was sampled from the headspace of the chamber. The volatility and hygroscopicity of nascent SSA was determined with a volatility and hygroscopicity tandem differential mobility analyser (VH-TDMA) (Johnson et al., 2004: doi:10.1016/j.jaerosci.2003.10.008, 2008: doi:10.1016/j.jaerosci.2008.05.005). A diffusion drier was used to dry the sample flow to 20 ± 5 % RH prior to characterisation by the VH-TDMA. The VH-TDMA used two TSI 3010 condensation particle counters. The aerosol sample flow rate for each scanning mobility particle sizer was 1 L/min, resulting in a total inlet flow of 2 L/min, the sheath flow for the pre-DMA, V-DMA and H-DMA were 11, 6 and 6 L/min, respectively. The dependence of HGF on RH at ambient temperature was measured for one water sample (workboat 9) to provide the deliquescence relative humidity (DRH). All VH-TDMA data were inverted using the TDMAinv algorithm (Gysel et al., 2009: doi:10.1016/j.jaerosci.2008.07.013). The seawater chlorophyll-a concentration was measured by filtering 2 litres of sample water onto GF/F Whatman filters, with immediate freezing in liquid nitrogen and subsequent analysis within 3 months of collection. Filters were ground and chlorophyll-a extracted in 90 % acetone with concentration determined by a calibrated fluorometer (Perkin-Elmer), with an analytical precision of 0.001 mg/m3 (Law et al., 2011: doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2010.10.018)

Sources, Occurrence and Characteristics of Fluorescent Biological Aerosol Particles Measured over the Pristine Southern Ocean

In this study we investigate the occurrence of primary biological aerosol particles (PBAP) over all sectors of the Southern Ocean (SO) based on a 90-day dataset collected during the Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition (ACE) in austral summer 2016-2017. Super-micrometer PBAP (1 to 16 µm diameter) were measured by a wide band integrated bioaerosol sensor (WIBS-4). Low (3σ) and high (9σ) fluorescence thresholds are used to obtain statistics on fluorescent and hyper-fluorescent PBAP, respectively. Our focus is on data obtained over the pristine ocean, i.e. more than 200 km away from land. The results indicate that (hyper-)fluorescent PBAP are correlated to atmospheric variables associated with sea spray aerosol (SSA) particles (wind speed, total super-micrometer aerosol number concentration, chloride and sodium concentrations). This suggests that a main source of PBAP over the SO is SSA. The median percentage contribution of fluorescent and hyper-fluorescent PBAP to super-micrometer SSA was 1.6% and 0.13%, respectively. We demonstrate that the fraction of (hyper-)fluorescent PBAP to total super-micrometer particles positively correlates with concentrations of bacteria and several taxa of pythoplankton measured in seawater, indicating that marine biota concentrations modulate the PBAP source flux. We investigate the fluorescent properties of (hyper-)fluorescent PBAP for several events that occurred near land masses. We find that the fluorescence signal characteristics of particles near land is much more variable than over the pristine ocean. We conclude that the source and concentration of fluorescent PBAP over the open ocean is similar across all sampled sectors of the SO

Sea spray aerosol organic enrichment, water uptake and surface tension effects

The aerosol-driven radiative effects on marine low-level cloud represent a large uncertainty in climate simulations, in particular over the Southern Ocean, which is also an important region for sea spray aerosol production. Observations of sea spray aerosol organic enrichment and the resulting impact on water uptake over the remote Southern Hemisphere are scarce, and therefore the region is underrepresented in existing parameterisations. The Surface Ocean Aerosol Production (SOAP) voyage was a 23 d voyage which sampled three phytoplankton blooms in the highly productive water of the Chatham Rise, east of New Zealand. In this study we examined the enrichment of organics to nascent sea spray aerosol and the modifications to sea spray aerosol water uptake using in situ chamber measurements of seawater samples taken during the SOAP voyage. Primary marine organics contributed up to 23% of the sea spray mass for particles with diameter less than approximately 1 m and up to 79% of the particle volume for 50 nm diameter sea spray. The composition of the submicron organic fraction was consistent throughout the voyage and was largely composed of a polysaccharide-like component, characterised by very low alkane-to-hydroxylconcentration ratios of approximately 0.1 0.2. The enrichment of organics was compared to the output from the chlorophyll-a-based sea spray aerosol parameterisation suggested by Gantt et al. (2011) and the OCEANFILMS (Organic Compounds from Ecosystems to Aerosols: Natural Films and Interfaces via Langmuir Molecular Surfactants) models. OCEANFILMS improved on the representation of the organic fraction predicted using chlorophyll a, in particular when the co-adsorption of polysaccharides was included; however, the model still under-predicted the proportion of polysaccharides by an average of 33 %. Nascent 50 nm diameter sea spray aerosol hygroscopic growth factors measured at 90% relative humidity averaged 1:930:08 and did not decrease with increasing sea spray aerosol organic fractions. The observed hygroscopicity was greater than expected from the assumption of full solubility, particularly during the most productive phytoplankton bloom (B1), during which organic fractions were greater than approximately 0.4. The water uptake behaviour observed in this study is consistent with that observed for other measurements of phytoplankton blooms and can be partially attributed to the presence of sea salt hydrates, which lowers the sea spray aerosol hygroscopicity when the organic enrichment is low. The inclusion of surface tension effects only marginally improved the modelled hygroscopicity, and a significant discrepancy between the observed and modelled hygroscopicity at high organic volume fractions remained. The findings from the SOAP voyage highlight the influence of biologically sourced organics on sea spray aerosol composition; these data improve the capacity to parameterise sea spray aerosol organic enrichment and water uptake. </p