[1] Atmospheric organic aerosol concentrations depend in part on the gas-particle partitioning of primary organic aerosol (POA) emissions. Consequently, heating and dilution were used to investigate the volatility of biomass-burning smoke particles from combustion of common North American trees/shrubs/grasses during the third Fire Lab at Missoula Experiment. Fifty to eighty percent of the mass of biomass-burning POA evaporated when isothermally diluted from plume-(~1000 μg m À3 ) to ambient-like concentrations (~10 μg m À3 ), while roughly 80% of the POA evaporated upon heating to 100°C in a thermodenuder with a residence time of 14 sec. Therefore, the majority of the POA emissions were semivolatile. Thermodenuder measurements performed at three different residence times indicated that there were not substantial mass transfer limitations to evaporation (i.e., the mass accommodation coefficient appears to be between 0.1 and 1). An evaporation kinetics model was used to derive volatility distributions and enthalpies of vaporization from the thermodenuder data. A single volatility distribution can be used to represent the measured gas-particle partitioning from the entire set of experiments, including different fuels, organic aerosol concentrations, and thermodenuder residence times. This distribution, derived from the thermodenuder measurements, also predicts the dilution-driven changes in gas-particle partitioning. This volatility distribution and associated emission factors for each fuel studied can be used to update emission inventories and to simulate the gas-particle partitioning of biomass-burning POA emissions in chemical transport models.
Abstract. Immersion freezing is the most relevant heterogeneous ice nucleation mechanism through which ice crystals are formed in mixed-phase clouds. In recent years, an increasing number of laboratory experiments utilizing a variety of instruments have examined immersion freezing activity of atmospherically relevant ice-nucleating particles. However, an intercomparison of these laboratory results is a difficult task because investigators have used different ice nucleation (IN) measurement methods to produce these results. A remaining challenge is to explore the sensitivity and accuracy of these techniques and to understand how the IN results are potentially influenced or biased by experimental parameters associated with these techniques.Within the framework of INUIT (Ice Nuclei Research Unit), we distributed an illite-rich sample (illite NX) as a representative surrogate for atmospheric mineral dust particles to investigators to perform immersion freezing experiments using different IN measurement methods and to obtain Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. N. Hiranuma et al.: A comparison of 17 IN measurement techniquesIN data as a function of particle concentration, temperature (T ), cooling rate and nucleation time. A total of 17 measurement methods were involved in the data intercomparison. Experiments with seven instruments started with the test sample pre-suspended in water before cooling, while 10 other instruments employed water vapor condensation onto drydispersed particles followed by immersion freezing. The resulting comprehensive immersion freezing data set was evaluated using the ice nucleation active surface-site density, n s , to develop a representative n s (T ) spectrum that spans a wide temperature range (−37 • C < T < −11 • C) and covers 9 orders of magnitude in n s .In general, the 17 immersion freezing measurement techniques deviate, within a range of about 8 • C in terms of temperature, by 3 orders of magnitude with respect to n s . In addition, we show evidence that the immersion freezing efficiency expressed in n s of illite NX particles is relatively independent of droplet size, particle mass in suspension, particle size and cooling rate during freezing. A strong temperature dependence and weak time and size dependence of the immersion freezing efficiency of illite-rich clay mineral particles enabled the n s parameterization solely as a function of temperature. We also characterized the n s (T ) spectra and identified a section with a steep slope between −20 and −27 • C, where a large fraction of active sites of our test dust may trigger immersion freezing. This slope was followed by a region with a gentler slope at temperatures below −27 • C. While the agreement between different instruments was reasonable below ∼ −27 • C, there seemed to be a different trend in the temperature-dependent ice nucleation activity from the suspension and dry-dispersed particle measurements for this mineral dust, in particular at higher temperatures. For instance,...
Biomass burning is a significant source of carbonaceous aerosol in many regions of the world. When present, biomass burning particles may affect the microphysical properties of clouds through their ability to function as cloud condensation nuclei or ice nuclei. We report on measurements of the ice nucleation ability of biomass burning particles performed on laboratory‐generated aerosols at the second Fire Lab at Missoula Experiment. During the experiment we generated smoke through controlled burns of 21 biomass fuels from the United States and Asia. Using a Colorado State University continuous flow diffusion chamber, we measured the condensation/immersion freezing potential at temperatures relevant to cold cumulus clouds (−30°C). Smokes from 9 of the 21 fuels acted as ice nuclei at fractions of 1:10,000 to 1:100 particles in at least one burn of each fuel; emissions from the remaining fuels were below the ice nuclei detection limit for all burns of each fuel. Using a bottom‐up emission model, we estimate that smokes that emit ice nuclei fractions exceeding 1:10,000 particles can perturb ice nuclei concentrations on a regional scale.
[1] During the Fire Laboratory at Missoula Experiments (FLAME), we studied the physical, chemical, and optical properties of biomass burning smoke from the laboratory combustion of various wildland fuels. A good understanding of these properties is important in determining the radiative effects of biomass burning aerosols, with impacts on both local and regional visibility and global climate. We measured aerosol size distributions with two instruments: a differential mobility particle sizer (DMPS) and an optical particle counter (OPC). Volume size distributions from different burns varied from monomodal to multimodal, with geometric mean diameters ranging from 0.20-0.57 mm and geometric standard deviations ranging from 1.68-2.97. By reconciling the differences between the two sizing instruments, we estimated aerosol effective refractive indices with values ranging from 1.41 to 1.61. We reconstructed aerosol chemical composition for each burn using data from filters collected and analyzed with the Interagency Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments (IMPROVE) samplers and protocols. Aerosols were generally comprised of carbon with organic species accounting for the largest mass fraction in most cases. We used composition data to calculate aerosol density, which ranged from 1.22-1.92 g cm −3 , and real and imaginary refractive indices, which had ranges of 1.55-1.80 and 0.01-0.50 respectively. Aerosol physical, chemical, and optical characterizations were combined to calculate dry mass scattering (MSE) and absorption (MAE) efficiencies at 532 nm. These parameters had values between 1.6-5.7 m 2 g −1 and 0.04-0.94 m 2 g −1 .
Weather and climate models are challenged by uncertainties and biases in simulating Southern Ocean (SO) radiative fluxes that trace to a poor understanding of cloud, aerosol, precipitation and radiative processes, and their interactions. Projects between 2016 and 2018 used in-situ probes, radar, lidar and other instruments to make comprehensive measurements of thermodynamics, surface radiation, cloud, precipitation, aerosol, cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) and ice nucleating particles over the SO cold waters, and in ubiquitous liquid and mixed-phase cloudsnucleating particles over the SO cold waters, and in ubiquitous liquid and mixed-phase clouds common to this pristine environment. Data including soundings were collected from the NSF/NCAR G-V aircraft flying north-south gradients south of Tasmania, at Macquarie Island, and on the RV Investigator and RSV Aurora Australis. Synergistically these data characterize boundary layer and free troposphere environmental properties, and represent the most comprehensive data of this type available south of the oceanic polar front, in the cold sector of SO cyclones, and across seasons.Results show a largely pristine environments with numerous small and few large aerosols above cloud, suggesting new particle formation and limited long-range transport from continents, high variability in CCN and cloud droplet concentrations, and ubiquitous supercooled water in thin, multi-layered clouds, often with small-scale generating cells near cloud top. These observations demonstrate how cloud properties depend on aerosols while highlighting the importance of confirmed low clouds were responsible for radiation biases. The combination of models and observations is examining how aerosols and meteorology couple to control SO water and energy budgets.
Despite increasing incidence of wildfires in the UnitedStates, wildfire smoke is poorly characterized, with little known about particle composition and emission rates. Chemistry in transported plumes confounds interpretation of ground and aircraft data, but nearfield observations can potentially disentangle the effects of oxidation and dilution on aerosol mass and chemical composition. We report the organic aerosol (OA) emission ratios from aircraft observations near the fire source for the 20 wildfires sampled during the Western Wildfire Experiment: Cloud Chemistry, Aerosol Absorption, and Nitrogen (WE-CAN) study of summer 2018. We observe no changes in submicron nonrefractory OA mass concentration, relative to CO which accounts for simple dilution, between 0.5 and up to 8 h of aging. However, static OA excess mixing ratios hide shifts in the aerosol chemical composition that suggest near-balanced, simultaneous oxidation-driven condensation and dilution-driven evaporation. Specifically, we observe significant increases in the extent of oxidation, evident by an increase in oxidation marker f 44 and loss of the biomass burning marker f 60 , as the smoke ages through chemistry and dilution. We discuss the competing effects of oxidative chemistry and dilution-driven evaporation on the evolution of the chemical composition of aerosols in wildfire smoke over time.
[1] Exposing Arizona Test Dust (ATD) particles to nitric acid vapor in an aerosol flow tube impaired subsequent deposition ice nucleation below water-saturation, but promoted condensation/immersion-freezing on approach to water saturation and had no apparent impact on freezing of activated droplets above water saturation. The fraction of particles capable of nucleating ice at −30°C was determined using a continuous flow diffusion chamber. Exposure to HNO 3 at 26% relative humidity with respect to water (RH w ) reduced the fraction of particles subsequently nucleating ice to below our quantification limit in the deposition nucleation regime below 97% RH w , while leading to a sharper step-wise increase in ice nucleation between 97-100% RH w compared to unreacted dust. These observations contrast with the effect of concentrated sulfuric acid condensation, which in most cases has been reported to reduce ice nucleation of ATD and other dusts both below and above water saturation. Citation: Sullivan,
An improved understanding of atmospheric ice nucleating particles (INP), including sources and atmospheric abundance, is needed to advance our understanding of aerosol-cloud-climate interactions. This study examines diverse biomass burning events to better constrain our understanding of how fires impact populations of INP. Sampling of prescribed burns and wildfires in Colorado and Georgia, U.S.A., revealed that biomass burning leads to the release of particles that are active as condensation/immersion freezing INP at temperatures from À32 to À12°C. During prescribed burning of wiregrass, up to 64% of INP collected during smoke-impacted periods were identified as soot particles via electron microscopy analyses. Other carbonaceous types and mineral-like particles dominated INP collected during wildfires of ponderosa pine forest in Colorado. Total measured n INP and the excess n INP associated with smoke-impacted periods were higher during two wildfires compared to the prescribed burns. Interferences from non-smoke sources of INP, including long-range transported mineral dust and local contributions of soils and plant materials lofted from the wildfires themselves, presented challenges in using the observations to develop a smoke-specific n INP parameterization. Nevertheless, these field observations suggest that biomass burning may serve as an important source of INP on a regional scale, particularly during time periods that lack other robust sources of INP such as long-range transported mineral dust.
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