Evidence for the role of organics in aerosol particle formation under atmospheric conditions
Edited by Barbara J. Finlayson-Pitts, University of California, Irvine, CA, and approved December 15, 2009 (received for review October 2, 2009)
Abstract
New particle formation in the atmosphere is an important parameter in governing the radiative forcing of atmospheric aerosols. However, detailed nucleation mechanisms remain ambiguous, as laboratory data have so far not been successful in explaining atmospheric nucleation. We investigated the formation of new particles in a smog chamber simulating the photochemical formation of H2SO4 and organic condensable species. Nucleation occurs at H2SO4 concentrations similar to those found in the ambient atmosphere during nucleation events. The measured particle formation rates are proportional to the product of the concentrations of H2SO4 and an organic molecule. This suggests that only one H2SO4 molecule and one organic molecule are involved in the rate-limiting step of the observed nucleation process. Parameterizing this process in a global aerosol model results in substantially better agreement with ambient observations compared to control runs.
Acknowledgments.
This work is supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Natural Environment Research Council, as well as the European Commission projects EUROCHAMP, POLYSOA, EUCAARI, and CLOUD-ITN. We thank the NASA Global Tropospheric Chemistry Program and investigators (Antony Clarke, University of Hawaii, and Bruce Anderson, NASA) for making available the INTEX-NA observations.
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Published online: January 19, 2010
Published in issue: April 13, 2010
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Acknowledgments
This work is supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Natural Environment Research Council, as well as the European Commission projects EUROCHAMP, POLYSOA, EUCAARI, and CLOUD-ITN. We thank the NASA Global Tropospheric Chemistry Program and investigators (Antony Clarke, University of Hawaii, and Bruce Anderson, NASA) for making available the INTEX-NA observations.
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This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
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The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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Evidence for the role of organics in aerosol particle formation under atmospheric conditions, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.
107 (15) 6646-6651,
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0911330107
(2010).
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