Regions of open water and melting sea ice drive new particle formation in North East Greenland

Abstract

Atmospheric new particle formation (NPF) and growth significantly influences the indirect aerosol-cloud effect within the polar climate system. In this work, the aerosol population is categorised via cluster analysis of aerosol number size distributions (9–915 nm, 65 bins) taken at Villum Research Station, Station Nord (VRS) in North Greenland during a 7 year record (2010–2016). Data are clustered at daily averaged resolution; in total, we classified six categories, five of which clearly describe the ultrafine aerosol population, one of which is linked to nucleation events (up to 39% during summer). Air mass trajectory analyses tie these frequent nucleation events to biogenic precursors released by open water and melting sea ice regions. NPF events in the studied regions seem not to be related to bird colonies from coastal zones. Our results show a negative correlation (r = −0.89) between NPF events and sea ice extent, suggesting the impact of ultrafine Arctic aerosols is likely to increase in the future, given the likely increased sea ice melting. Understanding the composition and the sources of Arctic aerosols requires further integrated studies with joint multi-component ocean-atmosphere observation and modelling.

Processes Controlling the Composition and Abundance of Arctic Aerosol

“…In addition, only Browse et al () included SOA formation, but their model considered only monoterpenes from terrestrial sources as possible aerosol precursors. Importantly, modeling studies have not captured the increased particle formation with decreasing sea ice extent observed by Dall'Osto et al (, ; Figure ).…”

“…Few studies have attempted to quantify the impact of Arctic warming and sea ice loss on natural aerosol. Notably, the occurrence of particle nucleation events at both Zeppelin and Nord has been anti‐correlated with sea ice extent in the last decade (Figure ); decreased sea ice extent is related to increased frequency of particle formation and growth during summer (Dall'Osto et al, , ). This work has further shown that particle formation occurred when air masses had traveled over areas of open water and broken ice, highlighting the importance of both open water and marginal ice zones as sources of aerosol precursors.…”

On the annual variability of Antarctic aerosol size distributions at Halley Research Station

“…S6b, d). Following terminology developed in previous work (Dall'Osto et al, 2017a, 2018b the remaining aerosol clusters can be classified as follows:…”

“…First, Dall'Osto et al (2017a) suggested that the microbiota of sea ice and the sea-ice-influenced ocean were a significant source of atmospheric nucleating particles concentrations (N 1-3 nm ). Second, within two different Arctic locations across large temporal scales (2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016) new particle formation was associated with air mass back trajectories passing over open water and melting-sea-ice regions, also pointing to marine biological activities within the open leads in the pack ice and/or along the melting marginal sea ice zone (MIZ) being responsible for such events (Dall'Osto et al, 2017b, 2018b. Our data from Halley and the brief intercomparison with two other stations suggest that the size distributions of Antarctic sub-micrometre aerosols may have been oversimplified in the past (Ito, 1993) and that complex interactions between multiple ecosystems, coupled with different atmospheric circulation, result in very different aerosol size distributions populating the Southern Hemisphere.…”

Observationally constrained analysis of sea salt aerosol in the marine atmosphere

“…Bubble-bursting and jet drops at the ocean surface result in the production of sea spray particles composed of inorganic sea salt and organic matter (e.g., de Leeuw et al, 2011;Quinn and Bates, 2014). Among various atmospheric aerosol components, sea salt is estimated to have the largest mass emission flux and the second-largest atmospheric mass loading globally (Textor et al, 2006).…”