Abstract. Siberia is one of few continental regions in the Northern Hemisphere where the atmosphere may sometimes approach pristine background conditions. We present the time series of aerosol and carbon monoxide (CO) measurements between September 2006 and December 2011 at the Zotino Tall Tower Observatory (ZOTTO) in Central Siberia (61 • N; 89 • E). We investigate the seasonal, weekly and diurnal variations of aerosol properties (including absorption and scattering coefficients and derived parameters, such as equivalent black carbon (BC e ), Ångström exponent, single scattering albedo, and backscattering ratio) and the CO mixing ratios. Criteria were established to distinguish polluted from near-pristine air masses, providing quantitative characteristics for each type. Depending on the season, 23-36 % of the sampling time at ZOTTO was found to be representative of a clean atmosphere. The summer pristine data indicate that primary biogenic and secondary organic aerosol formation are quite strong particle sources in the Siberian taiga. The summer seasons 2007-2008 were dominated by an Aitken mode around 80 nm size, whereas the summer 2009 with prevailing easterly winds produced particles in the accumulation mode around 200 nm size. We found these differences to be mainly related to air temperature, through its effect on the production rates of biogenic volatile organic compounds (VOC) precursor gases. In winter, the particle size distribution peaked at 160 nm, and the footprint of clean background air was characteristic for aged particles from anthropogenic sources at great distances from ZOTTO and diluted biofuel burning emissions from domestic heating. The wintertime polluted air originates mainly from large cities south and southwest of the site; these particles have a dominant mode around 100 nm, and the BC e / CO ratio of 7-11 ng m −3 ppb −1 suggests dominant contributions from coal and biofuel burning for heating. During summer, anthropogenic emissions are the dominant contributor to the pollution particles at ZOTTO, while only 12 % of the polluted events are classified as biomass-burning-dominated, but then often associated with extremely high CO concentrations and aerosol absorption coefficients. Two biomass-burning case studies revealed different BC e / CO ratios from different fire types, with the agricultural fires in April 2008 yielding a very high ratio of 21 ng m −3 ppb −1 . Overall, we find that anthropogenic sources dominate the aerosol population at ZOTTO most of the time, even during nominally clean episodes in winter, and that near-pristine conditions are encountered only in the growing season and then only episodically.

To investigate the energy, matter and reactive and non-reactive trace gas exchange between the atmosphere and a spruce forest in the German mountain region, two intensive measuring periods were conducted at the FLUXNET site DE-Bay (<i>Waldstein-Weidenbrunnen</i>) in September/October 2007 and June/July 2008. They were part of the project "ExchanGE processes in mountainous Regions" (EGER). Beyond a brief description of the experiment, the main focus of the paper concerns the coupling between the trunk space, the canopy and the above-canopy atmosphere. Therefore, relevant coherent structures were analyzed for different in- and above canopy layers, coupling between layers was classified according to already published procedures, and gradients and fluxes of meteorological quantities as well as concentrations of non-reactive and reactive trace compounds have been sorted along the coupling classes. Only in the case of a fully coupled system, it could be shown, that fluxes measured above the canopy are related to gradients between the canopy and the above-canopy atmosphere. Temporal changes of concentration differences between top of canopy and the forest floor, particularly those of reactive trace gases (NO, NO₂, O₃, and HONO) could only be interpreted on the basis of the coupling stage. Consequently, only concurrent and vertically resolved measurements of micrometeorological (turbulence) quantities and fluxes (gradients) of trace compounds will lead to a better understanding of the forest-atmosphere interaction

This study applies acoustic sounding to observe coherent structures in the roughness sublayer (RSL) above tall vegetated surfaces. Data were collected on 22 days during two separate field experiments in summer 2003. A quality control scheme was developed to ensure high data quality of the collected time series. The data analysis was done using both discrete and continuous wavelet transform. The flow in the RSL was found to be a superposition of dynamic Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities and convective mixing. The characteristic time scales for coherent structures resulting from the dynamic instabilities were observed to be approximately 20-30 s while thermal eddies have much larger time scales of 190-210 s. The degree of vertical coherency in the RSL increases with the flow evolving from neutral to near-convective conditions. This increase in the degree of organisation is attributed to the evolution of attached thermal eddies. The coherent structures resulting from instabilities were found to be present throughout the RSL but do not contribute to the increased vertical coherency. An alternative conceptual approach for the definition of the RSL is proposed, which yields its maximum vertical extent to five times the canopy height.

Abstract. This paper analyses aerosol particle number size distributions, particulate absorption at 570 nm wavelength and carbon monoxide (CO) measured between September 2006 and January 2010 at heights of 50 and 300 m at the Zotino Tall Tower Facility (ZOTTO) in Siberia (60.8 • N; 89.35 • E). Average number, surface and volume concentrations are broadly comparable to former studies covering shorter observation periods. Fits of multiple lognormal distributions yielded three maxima in probability distribution of geometric mean diameters in the Aitken and accumulation size range and a possible secondary maximum in the nucleation size range below 25 nm. The seasonal cycle of particulate absorption shows maximum concentrations in high winter (December) and minimum concentrations in mid-summer (July). The 90th percentile, however, indicates a secondary maximum in July/August that is likely related to forest fires. The strongly combustion derived CO shows a single winter maximum and a late summer minimum, albeit with a considerably smaller seasonal swing than the particle data due to its longer atmospheric lifetime. Total volume and even more so total number show a more complex seasonal variation with maxima in winter, spring, and summer. A cluster analysis of back trajectories and vertical profiles of the pseudo-potential temperature yielded ten clusters with three levels of particle number concentration: Low concentrations in Arctic air masses (400-500 cm −3 ), mid-level concentrations for zonally advected air masses from westerly directions between 55 • and 65 • N (600-800 cm −3 ), and high concentrations for air masses advected from the belt of industrial and population centers in Siberia and Kazakhstan (1200 cm −3 ). The obCorrespondence to: J. Heintzenberg (jost@tropos.de) servational data is representative for large parts of the troposphere over Siberia and might be particularly useful for the validation of global aerosol transport models.