Investigating the effectiveness of condensation sink based on heterogeneous nucleation theory

Tuovinen, Santeri; Kontkanen, Jenni; Jiang, Jingkun; Kulmala, Markku

doi:10.1016/j.jaerosci.2020.105613

Cited by 25 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…First, we started from the unresolved puzzle on why and by which mechanisms NPF is possible in a polluted environment like Beijing 30 . Based on our recent observations that clusters composed of sulfuric acid (H2SO4) and dimethyl amine (DMA) are crucial in producing new aerosol particles in both Shanghai and Beijing 35,36 , we estimated the effective condensation sink (CSeff) of such clusters using heterogeneous nucleation theory 37 (Fig. 4A, see details in SI material, section 3.3).…”

Section: The Estimated Time It Takes From Npf To Haze Formationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is reducing new particle formation a plausible solution to mitigate particulate air pollution in Beijing and other Chinese megacities?

et al. 2021

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Section: The Estimated Time It Takes From Npf To Haze Formationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is reducing new particle formation a plausible solution to mitigate particulate air pollution in Beijing and other Chinese megacities?

et al. 2021

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“…Mineral dust contributes to a major fraction of the global coarse mode aerosol load, with an emission rate into the atmosphere currently estimated at 1000-3000 Tg yr −1 from the Earth's surface (Tegen and Schepanski, 2009). Due to its proximity to the African continent, the Granada region is frequently affected by Saharan dust intrusions, especially in summer (Mandija et al, 2017;Valenzuela et al, 2015). These African dust intrusions usually transport large mineral Figure 7.…”

Section: Case Study: Npf During Saharan Dust Intrusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

New particle formation at urban and high-altitude remote sites in the south-eastern Iberian Peninsula

et al. 2020

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Abstract. A substantial fraction of the atmospheric aerosols originates from secondary new particle formation (NPF), where atmospheric vapours are transformed into particles that subsequently grow to larger sizes, affecting human health and the climate. In this study, we investigate aerosol size distributions at two stations located close to each other (∼ 20 km) but at different altitudes: urban (UGR; 680 m a.s.l., metres above sea level) and high-altitude remote (SNS; 2500 m a.s.l.) sites, both in the area of Granada, Spain, and part of AGORA observatory (Andalusian Global ObseRvatory of the Atmosphere). The analysis shows a significant contribution of nucleation mode aerosol particles to the total aerosol number concentration at both sites, with a contribution of 47 % and 48 % at SNS and UGR, respectively. Due to the important contribution of NPF events to the total aerosol number concentrations and their high occurrence frequency (> 70 %) during the study period, a detailed analysis of NPF events is done in order to get insight into the possible mechanisms and processes involved in NPF events at these contrastive sites. At SNS, NPF is found to be associated with the transport of gaseous precursors from lower altitudes by orographic buoyant upward flows. NPF events at the SNS site are always observed from the smallest measured sizes of the aerosol size distribution (4 nm), implying that NPF takes place in or in the vicinity of the high-altitude SNS station rather than being transported from lower altitudes. Although NPF events at the mountain site seem to be connected with those occurring at the urban site, growth rates (GRs) at SNS are higher than those at the UGR site (GR7−25 of 6.9 and 4.5 nm h−1 and GR4−7 of 4.1 and 3.6 nm h−1 at SNS and UGR, respectively). This fact could have special importance for the production of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) and therefore for cloud formations which may affect regional/global climate, since larger GRs at mountain sites could translate to a larger survival probability of NPF particles reaching CCN sizes, due to the shorter time period needed for the growth. The analysis of sulfuric acid (H2SO4) shows that the contribution of H2SO4 is able to explain a minimal fraction contribution to the observed GRs at both sites (< 1 % and < 10 % for the 7–25 and 4–7 nm size ranges, respectively), indicating that other condensing vapours are responsible for the majority of particle growth, as well as the differing growth rates between the two sites. Results also show that the condensation sink (CS) does not play a relevant role in NPF processes at both sites and points to the availability of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) as one of the main factors controlling the NPF events at both sites. Finally, a closer analysis of the NPF events that were observed at the SNS site during a Saharan dust episode that occurred during the field campaign was carried out, evidencing the role of TiO2 and F2O3 together with VOCs in promoting new particle formation during this dust intrusion event. Although further investigation is needed to improve our understanding in this topic, this result suggests that climate effects of mineral dust and NPF are not disconnected from each other as it was commonly thought. Therefore, since mineral dust contributes to a major fraction of the global aerosol mass load, dust–NPF interaction should be taken into account in global aerosol-climate modelling for better climate change prediction.

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“…Kulmala et al (2017) investigated theoretically the survival of growing molecular clusters and nanoparticles in different environments, and concluded that, contrary to observations, NPF events should not be possible in highly polluted conditions. The only explanation for this discrepancy is our incomplete understanding of the dynamics of sub-5 nm clusters/particles, including their real growth rate and the efficiency by which they are scavenged by larger particles (Kulmala et al, 2017;Tuovinen et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quiet New Particle Formation in the Atmosphere

Kulmala

Junninen

Dada

et al. 2022

Front. Environ. Sci.

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Atmospheric new particle formation (NPF) has been observed to take place in practice all around the world. In continental locations, typically about 10–40% of the days are so-called NPF event days characterized by a clear particle formation and growth that continue for several hours, occurring mostly during daytime. The other days are either non-event days, or days for which it is difficult to decide whether NPF had occurred or not. Using measurement data from several locations (Hyytiälä, Järvselja, and near-city background and city center of Budapest), we were able to show that NPF tends to occur also on the days traditionally characterized as non-event days. One explanation is the instrument sensitivity towards low number concentrations in the sub-10 nm range, which usually limits our capability to detect such NPF events. We found that during such days, particle formation rates at 6 nm were about 2–20% of those observed during the traditional NPF event days. Growth rates of the newly formed particles were very similar between the traditional NPF event and non-event days. This previously overlooked phenomenon, termed as quiet NPF, contributes significantly to the production of secondary particles in the atmosphere.

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Investigating the effectiveness of condensation sink based on heterogeneous nucleation theory

Cited by 25 publications

References 45 publications

Is reducing new particle formation a plausible solution to mitigate particulate air pollution in Beijing and other Chinese megacities?

Is reducing new particle formation a plausible solution to mitigate particulate air pollution in Beijing and other Chinese megacities?

New particle formation at urban and high-altitude remote sites in the south-eastern Iberian Peninsula

Quiet New Particle Formation in the Atmosphere

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