Particulate methanesulfonic acid over the central Mediterranean Sea: Source region identification and relationship with phytoplankton activity

Mansour, Karam; Decesari, Stefano; Bellacicco, Marco; Marullo, Salvatore; Santoleri, Rosalia; Bonasoni, Paolo; Facchini, Maria Cristina; Ovadnevaitė, Jurgita; Čeburnis, Darius; O’Dowd, Colin; Rinaldi, Matteo

doi:10.1016/j.atmosres.2019.104837

Cited by 16 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 78 publications

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“…In order to investigate the relation between phytoplankton activity and marine aerosol production, we attempted a spatial source attribution for the marine aerosol observed at MHD. This was done by deploying aerosol chemical composition and number concentration data, following a multistep approach (Mansour et al, 2020). The approach is based on spatio‐temporal correlation analysis between aerosol parameters and surface CHL concentration, BT analysis and the PSCF algorithm.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Linking Marine Biological Activity to Aerosol Chemical Composition and Cloud‐Relevant Properties Over the North Atlantic Ocean

et al. 2020

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The ways in which marine biological activity affects climate, by modifying aerosol properties, are not completely understood, causing high uncertainties in climate predictions. In this work, in situ measurements of aerosol chemical composition, particle number size distribution, cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), and ice‐nucleating particle (INP) number concentrations are combined with high‐resolution sea surface chlorophyll‐a concentration (CHL) and back‐trajectory data to elucidate the relationship between oceanic biological activity and marine aerosol. The measurements were performed during an intensive field campaign conducted in late summer (August–September) 2015 at the Mace Head Research Station (MHD). At the short time scale (1–2 months) of the experiment, we observed a clear dependency of the main aerosol physicochemical and cloud‐relevant properties on the patterns of biological activity, in specific oceanic regions with a delayed response of about 1–3 weeks. The oceanic region comprised between 47°–57°N and 14°–30°W was identified as the main source of biogenic aerosols during the campaign, with hints of some minor influence of waters up to the Greenland coast. These spatial and temporal relationships demonstrate that the marine biota influences aerosol properties under a variety of features up to the most cloud‐relevant properties. Such dependency of aerosol properties with oceanic biological activity was previously reported over the North Atlantic Ocean only for multiyear data sets, where the correlation may be enhanced by coincident seasonalities. A better knowledge of these short time scale interactions may lead to a significant improvement in understanding the ocean‐atmosphere‐cloud system, with important impacts on climate science.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Linking Marine Biological Activity to Aerosol Chemical Composition and Cloud‐Relevant Properties Over the North Atlantic Ocean

et al. 2020

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“…To investigate the relationship between marine cloud properties and oceanic biological activity (represented by CHL), we implemented the spatio‐temporal correlation analysis approach (Mansour, Decesari, Bellacicco, et al., 2020 ; Mansour, Decesari, Facchini, et al., 2020 ). The approach is based on evaluating, by standard least squares regression, the correlation coefficients between the GBRS cloud parameters (the average of each variable in the 2D cloud profile; vertically‐ cloud thickness and horizontally‐ measurement time), measured at MHD, and sea surface CHL, at each grid point of the NEA domain.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phytoplankton Impact on Marine Cloud Microphysical Properties Over the Northeast Atlantic Ocean

Mansour

Rinaldi

Preißler³

et al. 2022

JGR Atmospheres

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Stratiform clouds mostly originate over the oceans and have a profound impact on the Earth's radiation budget. Therefore, understanding the causes of the variability in their radiative effects is necessary for a better comprehension of the Earth's energy budget and climate forecast. The future effort to reduce the impact of greenhouse gases and their associated global warming potential puts the emphasis on natural sources (Boucher et al., 2013;Satheesh & Moorthy, 2005) and processes controlling marine stratiform clouds.The radiative impact and brightness of clouds strongly depend on their microphysical properties (Falkowski et al., 1992) such as liquid water content (LWC), cloud droplet effective radius (R eff ), and cloud droplet number concentration (CDNC). At constant LWC, the increase of aerosol number and cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) atmospheric concentrations results in higher CDNC while the R eff diminishes. Therefore, clouds are optically brighter as more solar radiation is scattered upward and less is transmitted through. This is known as the first

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“…Recent literature (Wilson et al, 2015;Knopf et al, 2011;Wang et al, 2015) has shown that sea spray organic aerosols can act as INPs in the clean marine atmosphere. Mansour et al (2020b) showed that nINP over the North Atlantic Ocean follows the patterns of marine biological activity as traced by surface CHL concentration. The relationship between INPs and phytoplankton biomass, traced by CHL concentration, was investigated.…”

Section: Satellite Chlorophyll a Data And Correlation Analysismentioning

confidence: 98%

“…In a laboratory-controlled setting, showed the production of both sub-and supermicrometer INPs (active at −22 • C) from controlled algal blooms, pointing out that different particle types and production mechanisms are involved. However, the possible relationship and time lag between chlorophyll production and sea spray aerosol generation in the atmosphere and subsequent ambient INP identification from the chlorophyll source are still under debate since the question involves complex processes over an ocean-atmospheric interface on a wide spatiotemporal scale (Crocker et al, 2020;Wolf et al, 2020;Mansour et al, 2020b). Since our correlations alone could not ascertain a causeeffect relation, we also ran the CWT spatial source attribution model on the same INP dataset (DFPC; PM 1 ; T = −15 • C; no land-influenced samples).…”

Section: Contribution Of Marine Biological Inp Sourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ice-nucleating particle concentration measurements from Ny-Ålesund during the Arctic spring–summer in 2018

et al. 2021

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Abstract. In this study, we present atmospheric ice-nucleating particle (INP) concentrations from the Gruvebadet (GVB) observatory in Ny-Ålesund (Svalbard). All aerosol particle sampling activities were conducted in April–August 2018. Ambient INP concentrations (nINP) were measured for aerosol particles collected on filter samples by means of two offline instruments: the Dynamic Filter Processing Chamber (DFPC) and the West Texas Cryogenic Refrigerator Applied to Freezing Test system (WT-CRAFT) to assess condensation and immersion freezing, respectively. DFPC measured nINPs for a set of filters collected through two size-segregated inlets: one for transmitting particulate matter of less than 1 µm (PM1), the other for particles with an aerodynamic diameter of less than 10 µm aerodynamic diameter (PM10). Overall, nINPPM10 measured by DFPC at a water saturation ratio of 1.02 ranged from 3 to 185 m−3 at temperatures (Ts) of −15 to −22 ∘C. On average, the super-micrometer INP (nINPPM10-nINPPM1) accounted for approximately 20 %–30 % of nINPPM10 in spring, increasing in summer to 45 % at −22 ∘C and 65 % at −15 ∘C. This increase in super-micrometer INP fraction towards summer suggests that super-micrometer aerosol particles play an important role as the source of INPs in the Arctic. For the same T range, WT-CRAFT measured 1 to 199 m−3. Although the two nINP datasets were in general agreement, a notable nINP offset was observed, particularly at −15 ∘C. Interestingly, the results of both DFPC and WT-CRAFT measurements did not show a sharp increase in nINP from spring to summer. While an increase was observed in a subset of our data (WT-CRAFT, between −18 and −21 ∘C), the spring-to-summer nINP enhancement ratios never exceeded a factor of 3. More evident seasonal variability was found, however, in our activated fraction (AF) data, calculated by scaling the measured nINP to the total aerosol particle concentration. In 2018, AF increased from spring to summer. This seasonal AF trend corresponds to the overall decrease in aerosol concentration towards summer and a concomitant increase in the contribution of super-micrometer particles. Indeed, the AF of coarse particles resulted markedly higher than that of sub-micrometer ones (2 orders of magnitude). Analysis of low-traveling back-trajectories and meteorological conditions at GVB matched to our INP data suggests that the summertime INP population is influenced by both terrestrial (snow-free land) and marine sources. Our spatiotemporal analyses of satellite-retrieved chlorophyll a, as well as spatial source attribution, indicate that the maritime INPs at GVB may come from the seawaters surrounding the Svalbard archipelago and/or in proximity to Greenland and Iceland during the observation period. Nevertheless, further analyses, performed on larger datasets, would be necessary to reach firmer and more general conclusions.

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Particulate methanesulfonic acid over the central Mediterranean Sea: Source region identification and relationship with phytoplankton activity

Cited by 16 publications

References 78 publications

Linking Marine Biological Activity to Aerosol Chemical Composition and Cloud‐Relevant Properties Over the North Atlantic Ocean

Linking Marine Biological Activity to Aerosol Chemical Composition and Cloud‐Relevant Properties Over the North Atlantic Ocean

Phytoplankton Impact on Marine Cloud Microphysical Properties Over the Northeast Atlantic Ocean

Ice-nucleating particle concentration measurements from Ny-Ålesund during the Arctic spring–summer in 2018

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