Salty Origins of Fresh Water Cloud droplets above the Amazonian rain forest form mostly around organic aerosols, but the source of the aerosols has been a mystery. Pöhlker et al. (p. 1075 ) report that particles rich in potassium salts emitted by Amazonian vegetation can act as the seeds for the growth of organic aerosol particles that function as condensation nuclei for water droplets. These specks of biogenic salts provide a surface for the condensation of low- or semi-volatile organic compounds formed by the atmospheric oxidation of isoprene and terpenes, molecules produced in great abundance by many kinds of Amazonian plants.

The cloud condensation nucleus (CCN) activity of organic‐sulfate particles was investigated using a steady‐state environmental chamber. The organic component consisted of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) generated in the dark from 24 ± 2 ppb α‐pinene for conditions of 300 ± 5 ppb ozone, 40 ± 2% relative humidity, and 25 ± 1°C, with the organic mass loading in the chamber ranging from 23 to 37 μg m−3. CCN analysis was performed for 80‐ to 150‐nm particles having variable organic‐sulfate volume fractions, which were estimated from the diameter of the organic‐sulfate particle relative to that of the seed as well as independently from mass spectra. Critical supersaturation, which increased for greater SOA volume fraction and smaller particle diameter, was well predicted by a Köhler model having two components, one for ammonium sulfate and another for SOA. The entire data set could be successfully modeled by a single suite of effective chemical parameters for SOA. The results suggest that the effects of limited organic solubility in mixed SOA‐sulfate particles may be reliably omitted in the treatment of cloud droplet formation.

[1] A new instrument, a 1 Â 3 tandem differential mobility analyzer (1 Â 3-TDMA), was deployed in June 2007 in the Southern Great Plains, Oklahoma, USA to study the phase of ambient particles. Its primary measurement, the irreversibility of the hygroscopic growth factor, is obtained by reversibly cycling relative humidity (RH) by ±8% and testing for irreversible changes in diameter. In 101 runs, efflorescence occurred 72% of the time for particles sampled at ambient RH. Deliquescence occurred in 13% of the runs. The more frequent occurrence of efflorescence compared to deliquescence was explained at least in part by the distribution of ambient RH, which had a median of 80% and quartiles of 65% and 93% RH. The deliquescence and efflorescence events were nearly exclusive from one another and could be separated by Min[RH Ambient, Inlet RH] <40% for deliquescence and Max[RH Ambient, Inlet RH] >50% for efflorescence. In outlook, the data set from the 1 Â 3-TDMA regarding the phase and hence water content of ambient particles can be used for validating regional chemical transport models of particle phase.

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