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    Characterization of aerosol particles at Cabo Verde close to sea level and at the cloud level – Part 2: Ice-nucleating particles in air, cloud and seawater
    (Katlenburg-Lindau : EGU, 2020) Gong, Xianda; Wex, Heike; van Pinxteren, Manuela; Triesch, Nadja; Fomba, Khanneh Wadinga; Lubitz, Jasmin; Stolle, Christian; Robinson, Tiera-Brandy; Müller, Thomas; Herrmann, Hartmut; Stratmann, Frank
    Ice-nucleating particles (INPs) in the troposphere can form ice in clouds via heterogeneous ice nucleation. Yet, atmospheric number concentrations of INPs (NINP) are not well characterized, and, although there is some understanding of their sources, it is still unclear to what extend different sources contribute or if all sources are known. In this work, we examined properties of INPs at Cabo Verde (a.k.a. Cape Verde) from different environmental compartments: the oceanic sea surface microlayer (SML), underlying water (ULW), cloud water and the atmosphere close to both sea level and cloud level. Both enrichment and depletion of NINP in SML compared to ULW were observed. The enrichment factor (EF) varied from roughly 0.4 to 11, and there was no clear trend in EF with ice-nucleation temperature. NINP values in PM10 sampled at Cape Verde Atmospheric Observatory (CVAO) at any particular ice-nucleation temperature spanned around 1 order of magnitude below −15 ∘C, and about 2 orders of magnitude at warmer temperatures (>−12  ∘C). Among the 17 PM10 samples at CVAO, three PM10 filters showed elevated NINP at warm temperatures, e.g., above 0.01 L−1 at −10 ∘C. After heating samples at 95 ∘C for 1 h, the elevated NINP at the warm temperatures disappeared, indicating that these highly ice active INPs were most likely biological particles. INP number concentrations in PM1 were generally lower than those in PM10 at CVAO. About 83±22 %, 67±18 % and 77±14 % (median±standard deviation) of INPs had a diameter >1 µm at ice-nucleation temperatures of −12, −15 and −18 ∘C, respectively. PM1 at CVAO did not show such elevated NINP at warm temperatures. Consequently, the difference in NINP between PM1 and PM10 at CVAO suggests that biological ice-active particles were present in the supermicron size range. NINP in PM10 at CVAO was found to be similar to that on Monte Verde (MV, at 744 m a.s.l.) during noncloud events. During cloud events, most INPs on MV were activated to cloud droplets. When highly ice active particles were present in PM10 filters at CVAO, they were not observed in PM10 filters on MV but in cloud water samples instead. This is direct evidence that these INPs, which are likely biological, are activated to cloud droplets during cloud events. For the observed air masses, atmospheric NINP values in air fit well to the concentrations observed in cloud water. When comparing concentrations of both sea salt and INPs in both seawater and PM10 filters, it can be concluded that sea spray aerosol (SSA) only contributed a minor fraction to the atmospheric NINP. This latter conclusion still holds when accounting for an enrichment of organic carbon in supermicron particles during sea spray generation as reported in literature.
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    Role of the dew water on the ground surface in HONO distribution: A case measurement in Melpitz
    (Katlenburg-Lindau : EGU, 2020) Ren, Yangang; Stieger, Bastian; Spindler, Gerald; Grosselin, Benoit; Mellouki, Abdelwahid; Tuch, Thomas; Wiedensohler, Alfred; Herrmann, Hartmut
    To characterize the role of dew water for the ground surface HONO distribution, nitrous acid (HONO) measurements with a Monitor for AeRosols and Gases in ambient Air (MARGA) and a LOng Path Absorption Photometer (LOPAP) instrument were performed at the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) research site in Melpitz, Germany, from 19 to 29 April 2018. The dew water was also collected and analyzed from 8 to 14 May 2019 using a glass sampler. The high time resolution of HONO measurements showed characteristic diurnal variations that revealed that (i) vehicle emissions are a minor source of HONO at Melpitz station; (ii) the heterogeneous conversion of NO2 to HONO on the ground surface dominates HONO production at night; (iii) there is significant nighttime loss of HONO with a sink strength of 0.16±0.12ppbv h-1; and (iv) dew water with mean NO-2 of 7.91±2.14 μgm-2 could serve as a temporary HONO source in the morning when the dew droplets evaporate. The nocturnal observations of HONO and NO2 allowed the direct evaluation of the ground uptake coefficients for these species at night: γNO2→HONO = 2.4±10-7 to 3.5±10-6, γHONO;ground = 1.7×10-5 to 2.8×10-4. A chemical model demonstrated that HONO deposition to the ground surface at night was 90 %-100% of the calculated unknown HONO source in the morning. These results suggest that dew water on the ground surface was controlling the temporal HONO distribution rather than straightforward NO2-HONO conversion. This can strongly enhance the OH reactivity throughout the morning time or in other planted areas that provide a large amount of ground surface based on the OH production rate calculation. © 2020 Copernicus GmbH. All rights reserved.
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    Treatment of non-ideality in the SPACCIM multiphase model-Part 2: Impacts on the multiphase chemical processing in deliquesced aerosol particles
    (Katlenburg-Lindau : EGU, 2020) Jhony Rusumdar, Ahmad; Tilgner, Andreas; Wolke, Ralf; Herrmann, Hartmut
    Tropospheric deliquesced particles are characterised by concentrated non-ideal solutions ("aerosol liquid water" or ALW) that can affect the occurring multiphase chemistry. However, such non-ideal solution effects have generally not yet been considered in and investigated by current complex multiphase chemistry models in an adequate way. Therefore, the present study aims at accessing the impact of non-ideality on multiphase chemical processing in concentrated aqueous aerosols. Simulations with the multiphase chemistry model (SPACCIM-SpactMod) are performed under different environmental and microphysical conditions with and without a treatment of non-ideal solutions in order to assess its impact on aqueous-phase chemical processing. The present study shows that activity coefficients of inorganic ions are often below unity under 90% RH-deliquesced aerosol conditions and that most uncharged organic compounds exhibit activity coefficient values of around or even above unity. Due to this behaviour, model studies have revealed that the inclusion of non-ideality considerably affects the multiphase chemical processing of transition metal ions (TMIs), oxidants, and related chemical subsystems such as organic chemistry. In detail, both the chemical formation and oxidation rates of Fe(II) are substantially lowered by a factor of 2.8 in the non-ideal base case compared to the ideal case. The reduced Fe(II) processing in the non-ideal base case, including lowered chemical rates of the Fenton reaction (70 %), leads to a reduced processing of HOx=HOy under deliquesced aerosol conditions. Consequently, higher multiphase H2O2 concentrations (larger by a factor of 3.1) and lower aqueous-phase OH concentrations (lower by a factor of 4) are modelled during non-cloud periods. For H2O2, a comparison of the chemical reaction rates reveals that the most important sink, the reaction with HSO3 , contributes with a 40% higher rate in the non-ideal base case than in the ideal case, leading to more efficient sulfate formation. On the other hand, the chemical formation rates of the OH radical are about 50% lower in the non-ideal base case than in the ideal case, leading to lower degradation rates of organic aerosol components. Thus, considering non-ideality influences the chemical processing and the concentrations of organic compounds under deliquesced particle conditions in a compound-specific manner. For example, the reduced oxidation budget under deliquesced particle conditions leads to both increased and decreased concentration levels, e.g. of important C2=C3 carboxylic acids. For oxalic acid, the present study demonstrates that the non-ideality treatment enables more realistic predictions of high oxalate concentrations than observed under ambient highly polluted conditions. Furthermore, the simulations imply that lower humidity conditions, i.e. more concentrated solutions, might promote higher oxalic acid concentration levels in aqueous aerosols due to differently affected formation and degradation processes. © 2020 Copernicus GmbH. All rights reserved.