Aerosol particle number size distributions and particulate light absorption at the ZOTTO tall tower (Siberia), 2006–2009

Abstract

Abstract. This paper covers measurements of the number-size distribution of aerosol particles, particulate absorption at 570 nm wavelength and CO as tracer gas from 2006 through 2009 at 50 and 300 m on the ZOTTO tower, Siberia at 60.8° N; 89.35° E. Average number, surface and volume concentrations are similar to results given for continental and boreal background locations. When fitted with lognormal functions, the probability distribution function of modal diameters shows three main maxima in the Aitken and accumulation size range and a possible secondary maximum in the nucleation size range below 25 nm. The seasonal distributions of the different particle parameters differ substantially. Particulate absorption has a clear single maximum in high winter and minimum values in mid-summer. The 90%-percentile, however, indicates a possible secondary maximum in July/August that may be related to forest fires. The strongly combustion derived CO shows a single winter maximum and a late summer minimum, albeit with a considerable 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 complemented by local stability information yielded ten clusters with three levels of particle concentration: Low concentrations for the northernmost (Arctic) clusters mid-level concentrations for clusters reaching rapidly west between 55° and 65° latitude, and high concentrations for the cluster reaching southwest via Kazakhstan to the central Russian industrial region.

Aerosol characteristics and particle production in the upper troposphere over the Amazon Basin

“…Our measurements both in the Amazon and at a remote site in central Siberia, distant from SO 2 emission sources and thus experiencing very low H 2 SO 4 concentrations, show that "classical" nucleation events are very rare to absent at such sites and may not provide a strong source of new particles (Heintzenberg et al, 2011;Andreae et al, 2015;Wiedensohler et al, 2017). Consequently, the UT may be an important, possibly even the dominant, source of tropospheric aerosol particles in regions that are not strongly affected by anthropogenic or natural primary aerosols.…”

Mapping the aerosol over Eurasia from the Zotino Tall Tower

“…As all instrumental details have been given in the previous article (Heintzenberg et al, 2011a) we restrict the information here to major features of the experimental setup. The air samples discussed in the present article have been taken from the 300 m inlet at the ZOTTO tower.…”

“…2006Á2009 have been analyzed in Heintzenberg et al (2011a). The present study extends the data set by two more years until the beginning of 2012.…”

“…The resulting maps cover integral particle parameters such as total number (and partial integrals over the particle number size distribution), surface, volume concentrations, and scattering and absorption coefficients. Heintzenberg et al (2011a) performed a cluster analysis of back trajectories and vertical profiles of the pseudopotential temperature yielding clusters with different levels of particle number concentration. For the larger present data set we followed the opposite approach.…”

Mass distributions and morphological and chemical characterization of urban aerosols in the continental Balkan area (Belgrade)

“…The diameter of the atmospheric particles can span over four orders of magnitude and in this wide-size range; for example, the mass of a 10-μm particle is equivalent to the mass of one billion 10-nm particles (Seinfeld and Pandis 1998;Heintzenberg et al 2011). The distribution of particle mass with respect to particle size, n M (D p ) (Eq.…”