During Biogenic Aerosols—Effects on Clouds and Climate (BAECC), the U.S. Department of Energy’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program deployed the Second ARM Mobile Facility (AMF2) to Hyytiälä, Finland, for an 8-month intensive measurement campaign from February to September 2014. The primary research goal is to understand the role of biogenic aerosols in cloud formation. Hyytiälä is host to the Station for Measuring Ecosystem–Atmosphere Relations II (SMEAR II), one of the world’s most comprehensive surface in situ observation sites in a boreal forest environment. The station has been measuring atmospheric aerosols, biogenic emissions, and an extensive suite of parameters relevant to atmosphere–biosphere interactions continuously since 1996. Combining vertical profiles from AMF2 with surface-based in situ SMEAR II observations allows the processes at the surface to be directly related to processes occurring throughout the entire tropospheric column. Together with the inclusion of extensive surface precipitation measurements and intensive observation periods involving aircraft flights and novel radiosonde launches, the complementary observations provide a unique opportunity for investigating aerosol–cloud interactions and cloud-to-precipitation processes in a boreal environment. The BAECC dataset provides opportunities for evaluating and improving models of aerosol sources and transport, cloud microphysical processes, and boundary layer structures. In addition, numerical models are being used to bridge the gap between surface-based and tropospheric observations.
Abstract. Ambient aerosol particles can take up water and thus change their optical properties depending on the hygroscopicity and the relative humidity (RH) of the surrounding air. Knowledge of the hygroscopicity effect is of crucial importance for radiative forcing calculations and is also needed for the comparison or validation of remote sensing or model results with in situ measurements. Specifically, particle light scattering depends on RH and can be described by the scattering enhancement factor f (RH), which is defined as the particle light scattering coefficient at defined RH divided by its dry value (RH < 30-40 %).Here, we present results of an intensive field campaign carried out in summer 2013 at the SMEAR II station at Hyytiälä, Finland. Ground-based and airborne measurements of aerosol optical, chemical and microphysical properties were conducted. The f (RH) measured at ground level by a humidified nephelometer is found to be generally lower (e.g. 1.63 ± 0.22 at RH = 85 % and λ = 525 nm) than observed at other European sites. One reason is the high organic mass fraction of the aerosol encountered at Hyytiälä to which f (RH) is clearly anti-correlated (R 2 ≈ 0.8). A simplified parametrization of f (RH) based on the measured chemical mass fraction can therefore be derived for this aerosol type. A trajectory analysis revealed that elevated values of f (RH) and the corresponding elevated inorganic mass fraction are partially caused by transported hygroscopic sea spray particles. An optical closure study shows the consistency of the ground-based in situ measurements.Our measurements allow to determine the ambient particle light extinction coefficient using the measured f (RH). By combining the ground-based measurements with intensive aircraft measurements of the particle number size distribution and ambient RH, columnar values of the particle extinction coefficient are determined and compared to columnar measurements of a co-located AERONET sun photometer. The water uptake is found to be of minor importance for the column-averaged properties due to the low particle hygroscopicity and the low RH during the daytime of the summer months. The in situ derived aerosol optical depths (AOD) clearly correlate with directly measured values of the sun photometer but are substantially lower compared to the directly measured values (factor of ∼ 2-3). The comparison degrades for longer wavelengths. The disagreement between in situ derived and directly measured AOD is hypothesized Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. 7248 P. Zieger et al.: Scattering enhancement of boreal aerosol and columnar closure study to originate from losses of coarse and fine mode particles through dry deposition within the canopy and losses in the in situ sampling lines. In addition, elevated aerosol layers (above 3 km) from long-range transport were observed using an aerosol lidar at Kuopio, Finland, about 200 km east-northeast of Hyytiälä. These elevated layers further explain parts of the disagree...
Abstract. The smelter industry in Kola Peninsula is the largest source of anthropogenic SO 2 in the Arctic part of Europe and one of the largest within the Arctic domain. Due to socio-economic changes in Russia, the emissions have been decreasing especially since the late 1990s resulting in decreased SO 2 concentrations close to Kola in eastern Lapland, Finland. At the same time, the frequency of new particle formation days has been decreasing distinctively at SMEAR I station in eastern Lapland, especially during spring and autumn. We show that sulfur species, namely sulfur dioxide and sulfuric acid, have an important role in both new particle formation and subsequent growth and that the decrease in new particle formation days is a result of the reduction of sulfur emissions originating from Kola Peninsula. In addition to sulfur species, there are many other quantities, such as formation rate of aerosol particles, condensation sink and nucleation mode particle number concentration, which are related to the number of observed new particle formation (NPF) days and need to be addressed when linking sulfur emissions and NPF. We show that while most of these quantities exhibit statistically significant trends, the reduction in Kola sulfur emissions is the most obvious reason for the rapid decline in NPF days. Sulfuric acid explains approximately 20-50 % of the aerosol condensational growth observed at SMEAR I, and there is a large seasonal variation with highest values obtained during spring and autumn. We found that (i) particles form earlier after sunrise during late winter and early spring due to high concentrations of SO 2 and H 2 SO 4 ; (ii) several events occurred during the absence of light, and they were connected to higher than average concentrations of SO 2 ; and (iii) high SO 2 concentrations could advance the onset of nucleation by several hours. Moreover, air masses coming over Kola Peninsula seemed to favour new particle formation.
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