A case of transatlantic aerosol transport detected at the Schneefernerhaus Observatory (2650 m) on the northern edge of the Alps

Birmili, W.; Göbel, T.; Sonntag, A.; Ries, Ludwig; Sohmer, Ralf; Gilge, Stefan; Levin, Ingeborg; Stohl, Andreas

doi:10.1127/0941-2948/2010/0465

Cited by 13 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…The site borders the railway station Dresden-Neustadt, with mainly electrified trains passing by at a distance of 200 m to the north. Basic features of the particle number size distributions are presented in Gnauck et al (2012) and Birmili et al (2013).…”

Section: Dresden-nordmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-term observations of tropospheric particle number size distributions and equivalent black carbon mass concentrations in the German Ultrafine Aerosol Network (GUAN)

Birmili

Weinhold

Rasch

et al. 2016

Earth Syst. Sci. Data

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Abstract. The German Ultrafine Aerosol Network (GUAN) is a cooperative atmospheric observation network, which aims at improving the scientific understanding of aerosol-related effects in the troposphere. The network addresses research questions dedicated to both climate- and health-related effects. GUAN's core activity has been the continuous collection of tropospheric particle number size distributions and black carbon mass concentrations at 17 observation sites in Germany. These sites cover various environmental settings including urban traffic, urban background, rural background, and Alpine mountains. In association with partner projects, GUAN has implemented a high degree of harmonisation of instrumentation, operating procedures, and data evaluation procedures. The quality of the measurement data is assured by laboratory intercomparisons as well as on-site comparisons with reference instruments. This paper describes the measurement sites, instrumentation, quality assurance, and data evaluation procedures in the network as well as the EBAS repository, where the data sets can be obtained (doi:10.5072/guan).

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Section: Dresden-nordmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-term observations of tropospheric particle number size distributions and equivalent black carbon mass concentrations in the German Ultrafine Aerosol Network (GUAN)

Birmili

Weinhold

Rasch

et al. 2016

Earth Syst. Sci. Data

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“…58-59 in ATMOFAST, 2005;Petzold et al, 2007). This has led us to the idea that the transport from lower latitudes in North America to Europe is less coherent or is implying a partial washout of particles in warmconveyor belts (see also Birmili et al, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stratospheric ozone in boreal fire plumes – the 2013 smoke season over central Europe

et al. 2015

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Abstract. In July 2013 very strong boreal fire plumes were observed at the northern rim of the Alps by lidar and ceilometer measurements of aerosol, ozone and water vapour for about 3 weeks. In addition, some of the lower-tropospheric components of these layers were analysed at the Global Atmosphere Watch laboratory at the Schneefernerhaus highaltitude research station (2650 m a.s.l., located a few hundred metres south-west of the Zugspitze summit). The high amount of particles confirms our hypothesis that fires in the Arctic regions of North America lead to much stronger signatures in the central European atmosphere than the multitude of fires in the USA. This has been ascribed to the prevailing anticyclonic advection pattern during favourable periods and subsidence, in contrast to warm-conveyor-belt export, rainout and dilution frequently found for lower latitudes. A high number of the pronounced aerosol structures were positively correlated with elevated ozone. Chemical ozone formation in boreal fire plumes is known to be rather limited. Indeed, these air masses could be attributed to stratospheric air intrusions descending from remote high-latitude regions, obviously picking up the aerosol on their way across Canada. In one case, subsidence from the stratosphere over Siberia over as many as 15-20 days without increase in humidity was observed although a significant amount of Canadian smoke was trapped. These coherent air streams lead to rather straight and rapid transport of the particles to Europe.

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“…The climatology of the RL height usually exhibits a similar seasonality as the ABL height, with a maxima in summer (or pre-30 monsoon) season and a minima in winter (Birmili et al, 2009(Birmili et al, , 2010Collaud Coen et al, 2014;Wang et al, 2016). Further, the RL also has similar dependency as the ABL as a function of latitude.…”

Section: Using Measurements To Assess the Abl Influencementioning

confidence: 99%

The topography contribution to the influence of the atmospheric boundary layer at high altitude stations

Coen

Andrews

Aliaga

et al. 2017

Preprint

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Abstract. High altitude stations are often emphasized as free tropospheric measuring sites but they remain influenced by atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) air masses due to convective transport processes. The local and meso-scale topographical features around the station are involved in the convective boundary layer development and in the formation of thermally induced winds leading to ABL air lifting. The station altitude is not a sufficient parameter to characterize the ABL influence. 20Topography data from the global digital elevation model GTopo30 were used to calculate 5 parameters for 46 high altitude stations situated in five continents. The geometric mean of these 5 parameters determines a topography based index called ABL-TopoIndex which can be used to rank the high altitude stations as a function of the ABL influence. To construct the ABL-TopoIndex, we rely on the criteria that the ABL influence will be low if the station is one of the highest points in the mountainous massif, if there is a large altitude difference between the station and the valleys or plateaus, if the slopes around 25 the station are steep, and finally if the drainage basin for air convection is small. All stations on volcanic islands exhibit a low ABL-TopoIndex whereas stations in the Himalaya and the Tibetan Plateau have high ABL-TopoIndex values.Spearman's rank correlation between aerosol optical properties and number concentration from 28 stations and the ABLTopoIndex, the altitude and the latitude are used to validate this topographical approach. Statistically significant (s.s.) correlations are found between the 5 and 50 percentiles of all aerosol parameters and the ABL-TopoIndex whereas no s.s. 30 correlation is found with the station altitude. The diurnal cycles of aerosol parameters seem to be best explained by the station latitude although a s.s. correlation is found between the amplitude of the diurnal cycles of the absorption coefficient and the ABL-TopoIndex. Finally, the main flow paths for air convection were calculated for various ABL heights.Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., https://doi

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A case of transatlantic aerosol transport detected at the Schneefernerhaus Observatory (2650 m) on the northern edge of the Alps

Cited by 13 publications

References 28 publications

Long-term observations of tropospheric particle number size distributions and equivalent black carbon mass concentrations in the German Ultrafine Aerosol Network (GUAN)

Long-term observations of tropospheric particle number size distributions and equivalent black carbon mass concentrations in the German Ultrafine Aerosol Network (GUAN)

Stratospheric ozone in boreal fire plumes – the 2013 smoke season over central Europe

The topography contribution to the influence of the atmospheric boundary layer at high altitude stations

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