Fourteen months of on-line measurements of the non-refractory submicron aerosol at the Jungfraujoch (3580 m a.s.l.) – chemical composition, origins and organic aerosol sources

Abstract

Abstract. Chemically resolved (organic, nitrate, sulfate, ammonium) data of non-refractory submicron (NR-PM1) aerosol from the first long-term deployment (27 July 2012 to 02 October 2013) of a time-of-flight aerosol chemical speciation monitor (ToF-ACSM) at the Swiss high-altitude site Jungfraujoch (JFJ; 3580 m a.s.l.) are presented. Besides total mass loadings, diurnal variations and relative species contributions during the different meteorological seasons, geographical origin and sources of organic aerosol (OA) are discussed. Backward transport simulations show that the highest (especially sulfate) concentrations of NR-PM1 were measured in air masses advected to the station from regions south of the JFJ, while lowest concentrations were seen from western regions. OA source apportionment for each season was performed using the Source Finder (SoFi) interface for the multilinear engine (ME-2). OA was dominated in all seasons by oxygenated OA (OOA, 71–88 %), with lesser contributions from local tourism-related activities (7–12 %) and hydrocarbon-like OA related to regional vertical transport (3–9 %). In summer the OOA can be separated into a background low-volatility OA (LV-OOA I, possibly associated with long-range transport) and a slightly less oxidised low-volatility OA (LV-OOA II) associated with regional vertical transport. Wood burning-related OA associated with regional transport was detected during the whole winter 2012/2013 and during rare events in summer 2013, in the latter case attributed to small-scale transport for the surrounding valleys. Additionally, the data were divided into periods with free tropospheric (FT) conditions and periods with planetary boundary layer (PBL) influence, enabling the assessment of the composition for each. Most nitrate and part of the OA are injected from the regional PBL, while sulfate is mainly produced in the FT. The south/north gradient of sulfate is also pronounced in FT air masses (sulfate mass fraction from the south: 45 %; from the north: 29 %). Furthermore, a detailed investigation of specific marker fragments of the OA spectra (f43, f44, f55, f57, f60) showed different degrees of ageing depending on season.

Chemical characterization of long-range transport biomass burning emissions to the Himalayas: insights from high-resolution aerosol mass spectrometry

“…More- over, as shown in Table S1 in the Supplement, the PM 1 mass concentration in this study was also lower than those measured at three remote island sites in Asia which were frequently influenced by outflow from China, Korea, and Japan (i.e., 7.9 µg m −3 for Okinawa island, 12.0 µg m −3 for Fukue island in Japan, and 10.7 µg m −3 for Jeju island in Korea) (Takami et al, 2005;Jimenez et al, 2009), as well as the PM 1 mass concentration (15.1 µg m −3 ) obtained at the Bachelor Mountain in US which was heavily impacted by wildfire smoke plumes . However, it was higher than those reported at other coastal, high elevation, forest, or remote background sites in North America and Europe (0.55-2.91 µg m −3 ) (Zhang et al, 2007a;Fröhlich et al, 2015). Although the measurements mentioned above were conducted at various sites worldwide during different seasons, these comparisons further demonstrate that QOMS is a typical high elevation, remote, background site in Asia.…”

Composition of ice particle residuals in mixed phase clouds at Jungfraujoch (Switzerland): Enrichment and depletion of particle groups relative to total aerosol

“…There are two possible explanations for this: deposition loss in the total aerosol inlet and/or a leak in the interstitial inlet. The relative abundance of the different particle groups in these samples is however comparable to previous findings at Jungfraujoch (Cozic et al, 2008b;Kamphus et al, 2010;Fröhlich et al, 2015). A 15 possible deposition loss leading to systematic bias in the concentration measurements does not seem to change the relative abundance of the different particle groups.…”

“…Four of the six total aerosol samples are dominated by complex secondary particles (Fig.3), which seems to be typical for Jungfraujoch (Cozic et al, 2008b;Fröhlich et al, 2015). Two samples (S-2b and S-5b) have a different composition (Fig.3).…”

Chemical and physical influences on aerosol activation in liquid clouds: a study based on observations from the Jungfraujoch, Switzerland

“…Data that are likely affected by construction activities, snow groomer operation, and other local anthropogenic influences (mainly cigarette smoke; Fröhlich et al, 2015) have been removed from the data sets. As the JFJ is characterized as a background site, sudden, short-lived fluctuations in the aerosol size distribution can be interpreted as local pollution .…”

“…individual data points are allowed to be drawn only once to avoid a sampling bias as e.g. in Friedman, 2015) from each year of data, and the R and error values were calculated with (i) the general model and (ii) the models fitted to each sampled set of 400 observations (i.e. 100 observations from each year) separately.…”