Search Results

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Item
    Calibration of LACIS as a CCN detector and its use in measuring activation and hygroscopic growth of atmospheric aerosol particles
    (München : European Geopyhsical Union, 2006) Wex, H.; Kiselev, A.; Ziese, M.; Stratmann, F.
    A calibration for LACIS (Leipzig Aerosol Cloud Interaction Simulator) for its use as a CCN (cloud condensation nuclei) detector has been developed. For this purpose, sodium chloride and ammonium sulfate particles of known sizes were generated and their grown sizes were detected at the LACIS outlet. From these signals, the effective critical super-saturation was derived as a function of the LACIS wall temperature. With this, LACIS is calibrated for its use as a CCN detector. The applicability of LACIS for measurements of the droplet activation, and also of the hygroscopic growth of atmospheric aerosol particles was tested. The activation of the urban aerosol particles used in the measurements was found to occur at a critical super-saturation of 0.46% for particles with a dry diameter of 75 nm, and at 0.42% for 85 nm, respectively. Hygroscopic growth was measured for atmospheric aerosol particles with dry diameters of 150, 300 and 350 nm at relative humidities of 98 and 99%, and it was found that the larger dry particles contained a larger soluble volume fraction of about 0.85, compared to about 0.6 for the 150 nm particles.
  • Item
    LACIS-measurements and parameterization of sea-salt particle hygroscopic growth and activation
    (München : European Geopyhsical Union, 2008) Niedermeier, D.; Wex, H.; Voigtländer, J.; Stratmann, F.; Brüggemann, E.; Kiselev, A.; Henk, H.; Heintzenberg, J.
    The Leipzig Aerosol Cloud Interaction Simulator (LACIS) was used to investigate the hygroscopic growth and activation of sea-salt particles which were generated from three different sea-water samples. The measurements showed that the sea-salt particles exhibit a slightly reduced hygroscopic growth compared to pure NaCl particles. Köhler theory was utilized to model the hygroscopic growth of these particles. Some parameters used in this model are unknown for sea-salt. These parameters are combined in an "ionic density" ρion. For each sea-salt sample an average ρion was determined by fitting the Köhler equation to the data from the hygroscopic growth measurements. LACIS was also used to measure the activation of the sea-salt particles at three different supersaturations: 0.11%, 0.17% and 0.32%. A CCN-closure was tested by calculating the critical diameters Dcrit for the sea-salt particles at these supersaturations, using the Köhler model and the corresponding ρion as derived from the hygroscopic growth data. These calculated critical diameters were compared to the measured ones. Measured and calculated values of Dcrit agree within the level of uncertainty. Based on this successful closure, a new parameterization to describe sea-salt-particle hygroscopic growth (at RH>95%) and activation has been developed.