Abstract. Understanding the global distribution of atmospheric black carbon (BC) is essential for unveiling its climatic effect. However, there are still large uncertainties regarding the simulation of BC transport due to
inadequate information about the removal process. We accessed the wet
removal rate of BC in East Asia based on long-term measurements over
the 2010–2016 period at three representative background sites
(Baengnyeong and Gosan in South Korea and Noto in Japan). The average
wet removal rate, represented by transport efficiency (TE), i.e., the
fraction of undeposited BC particles during transport, was estimated
to be 0.73 in East Asia from 2010 to 2016. According to the
relationship between accumulated precipitation along trajectory and
TE, the wet removal efficiency was lower in East and North China but
higher in South Korea and Japan, implying the importance of the aging
process and frequency of exposure to below- and in-cloud scavenging
conditions during air mass transport. Moreover, the wet scavenging in
winter and summer showed the highest and lowest efficiency,
respectively, although the lowest removal efficiency in summer was
primarily associated with a reduced BC aging process because the
in-cloud scavenging condition was dominant. The average half-life and
e-folding lifetime of BC were 2.8 and 7.1 d, respectively,
which is similar to previous studies, but those values differed
according to the geographical location and meteorological conditions
of each site. Next, by comparing TE from the FLEXible PARTicle
(FLEXPART) Lagrangian transport model (version 10.4), we diagnosed the
scavenging coefficients (s−1) of the below- and in-cloud
scavenging scheme implemented in FLEXPART. The overall median TE from
FLEXPART (0.91) was overestimated compared to the measured value,
implying the underestimation of wet scavenging coefficients in the model
simulation. The median of the measured below-cloud scavenging
coefficient showed a lower value than that calculated according to
FLEXPART scheme by a factor of 1.7. On the other hand, the overall
median of the calculated in-cloud scavenging coefficients from the FLEXPART scheme was highly underestimated by 1 order of magnitude, compared to the measured value. From an analysis of artificial neural
networks, the convective available potential energy, which is well
known as an indicator of vertical instability, should be considered in
the in-cloud scavenging process to improve the representative regional
difference in BC wet scavenging over East Asia. For the first time,
this study suggests an effective and straightforward evaluation
method for wet scavenging schemes (both below and in cloud), by
introducing TE along with excluding effects from the inaccurate
emission inventories.