Abstract. Sea salt particles are constantly produced from ocean surfaces by wave-wind interactions and removed by deposition and precipitation scavenging. These particles constitute the background aerosol for light scattering in the marine boundary layer. In this work, the thermodynamic and optical properties of sea salt aerosol particles generated from seawater samples are measured at 25øC as a function of relative humidity, using a single-particle levitation technique. Water activities, densities, and refractive indices of aqueous solution droplets containing a single salt NaCI, Na2SO 4, MgCI 2, or MgSO 4 are also reported as a function of concentration. The light-scattering properties of the sea salt aerosol are modeled by the external mixture of these four salt systems selected to approximate the sea salt composition. Good agreements are obtained. It follows that in either visibility reduction or radiative forcing calculations, both freshly produced and aged sea salt aerosols may be modeled by external mixtures of the appropriate inorganic salts, whose solution properties are now available in the literature.

The phase transformation and hydration of inorganic salt particles composed of alkaline earth metal nitrates, Ba(NO3)2, Sr(NO3)2, and Ca(NO3)2, are investigated in a quadrupole cell, in which a levitated single microparticle is in dynamic equilibrium with water vapor under controlled humidity conditions. Laser Raman and Mie scattering techniques are used to probe the chemical and physical states of the microparticle before and after phase transformation. Because of the high degree of supersaturation that only a suspended solution droplet can attain before solidifying, metastable states not predicted from bulk solution thermodynamics often result. Thus it is found that, except for Ba(NO3)2 particles which form the stable anhydrous crystalline state upon efflorescence, Sr(NO3)2 and Ca(NO3)2 droplets solidify to a metastable amorphous state that contains residual water persisting even in high vacuum. Raman spectra of the amorphous particles reveal that the nitrate ions form contact-ion pairs with the bivalent cations and that the residual water molecules possess very little, if any, hydrogen bond characteristics. The deliquescence properties of the amorphous particles, which are found to be different from those expected of the bulk crystalline states, are also reported.

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Experimental results are reported on a mobile, stand-alone, solar-blind ultraviolet (UV) Raman lidar system for the stand-off detection and identification of liquid and solid targets at ranges of hundreds of meters. The lidar is a coaxial system capable of performing range-resolved measurements of gases and aerosols, as well as solids and liquids. The transmitter is a flash lamp pumped 30 Hz Nd:YAG laser with quadrupled output at 266 nm. The receiver subsystem is comprised of a 40 cm Cassegrain telescope, a holographic UV edge filter for suppressing the elastic channel, a 0.46 m Czerny–Turner spectrometer, and a time gated intensified charge-coupled device (CCD) detector. The rejection of elastic light scattering by the edge filter is better than one part in 105, while the transmittance 500 cm−1 to the red of the laser line is greater than 50%. Raman data are shown for selected solids, neat liquids, and mixtures down to the level of 1% volume ratio. On the basis of the strength of the Raman returns, a stand-off detection limit of ∼ 500 g/m2 for liquid spills of common solvents at the range of one half of a kilometer is possible.

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