Review of sulfur dioxide to sulfate aerosol chemistry at Kīlauea Volcano, Hawai‘i

Pattantyus, A.; Howell, S. G.

doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2018.04.055

Cited by 48 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…Aerosol acidity, as characterized by pH (hydrogen ion activity expressed on a logarithmic scale), influences aerosol growth and concentrations via secondary aerosol formation and gas-aerosol partitioning (Jang et al, 2002;H. Y. Li et al, 2018;Meskhidze et al, 2003;Pattatyus et al, 2018;Surratta et al, 2010). Fine particulate matter, much of which can be acidic (Lawal et al, 2018;Silvern et al, 2017;Song et al, 2018Song et al, , 2019Weber et al, 2016), is also associated with harmful effects on human health.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aerosol pH Dynamics During Haze Periods in an Urban Environment in China: Use of Detailed, Hourly, Speciated Observations to Study the Role of Ammonia Availability and Secondary Aerosol Formation and Urban Environment

Shi

et al. 2019

JGR Atmospheres

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Aerosol pH is a useful diagnostic of aerosol chemistry for formation of secondary aerosol and has been hypothesized to be a key factor in specific chemical reaction routes producing sulfate and nitrate. In this study, we measured hourly concentrations of water‐soluble ions in particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter less than 2.5 μm, along with gaseous pollutants in Tianjin, China, from 4 to 31 January 2015. The following source contributions to water‐soluble ions were estimated by positive matrix factorization: secondary sulfate (13%), secondary nitrate (44%), coal (14%), vehicle (16%), and dust (13%). ISORROPIA‐II was used to investigate the complex relationships among aerosol pH, ammonia, and secondary aerosol formation. The estimated hourly aerosol pH varied from −0.3 to 7.7, with an average of 4.9 (±0.78); the median value was 4.89, and the interquartile range was 0.72. During less polluted conditions, aerosol pH ranged from less than 0 to about 7; during heavily polluted conditions, pH was close to 5 (3.9–7.9) despite large amounts of sulfate. Sufficient ammonia/ammonium was present to balance high sulfate and nitrate formation. NH4+/NH3 (g) helped stabilize pH while nonvolatile cations contributed less to decreasing aerosol acidity. High acidy (pH < 3), light pollution (total water soluble ions < 30 μg/m3), and low water content (less than 5 μg/m3) were more correlated with higher rates of sulfate formation than nitrate formation in the winter.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aerosol pH Dynamics During Haze Periods in an Urban Environment in China: Use of Detailed, Hourly, Speciated Observations to Study the Role of Ammonia Availability and Secondary Aerosol Formation and Urban Environment

Shi

et al. 2019

JGR Atmospheres

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“…Volcanic emissions at source commonly consist of a mixture of silicate ash particles, various gases and non-silicate aerosol (Oppenheimer and McGonigle, 2004;von Glasow et al, 2009;Langmann, 2014). The lifetime of SO 2 in the lower troposphere is generally considered to be on the order of 1-3 days to a week (Allen et al, 2002;Rotstayn and Lohmann, 2002;Pfeffer et al, 2006a;Pattantyus et al, 2018), the rate of conversion depending on relative humidity and temperature, the availability of oxidants, and interaction with cloud or fog (Saxena and Seigneur, 1987;Oppenheimer et al, 1998). However, the SO 2 oxidation pathways in a volcanic cloud are not necessarily the same as under background conditions (Galeazzo et al, 2018).…”

Section: Dispersal Of Volcanic Emissionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the SO 2 oxidation pathways in a volcanic cloud are not necessarily the same as under background conditions (Galeazzo et al, 2018). Through a variety of reaction pathways (including oxidation with the hydroxyl radical, OH, and with hydrogen peroxide, H 2 O 2 , and O 3 ), SO 2 in volcanic clouds is gradually converted to sulfate aerosol (Stockwell and Calvert, 1983;Allen et al, 2002), which is a dominant component of volcanic PM 2.5 (Tam et al, 2016;Pattantyus et al, 2018). The conversion rate of SO 2 to sulfate aerosol is important for estimating the potential hazard of volcanic PM 2.5 to human health and the downwind environments (Kroll et al, 2015).…”

Section: Dispersal Of Volcanic Emissionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial and Temporal Variations in SO2 and PM2.5 Levels Around Kīlauea Volcano, Hawai'i During 2007–2018

et al. 2020

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Among the hazards posed by volcanoes are the emissions of gases and particles that can affect air quality and damage agriculture and infrastructure. A recent intense episode of volcanic degassing associated with severe impacts on air quality accompanied the 2018 lower East Rift Zone (LERZ) eruption of Kīlauea volcano, Hawai'i. This resulted in a major increase in gas emission rates with respect to usual emission values for this volcano, along with a shift in the source of the dominant plume to a populated area on the lower flank of the volcano. This led to reduced air quality in downwind communities. We analyse open-access data from the permanent air quality monitoring networks operated by the Hawai'i Department of Health (HDOH) and National Park Service (NPS), and report on measurements of atmospheric sulfur dioxide (SO 2) between 2007 and 2018 and PM 2.5 (aerosol particulate matter with diameter <2.5 µm) between 2010 and 2018. Additional air quality data were collected through a community-operated network of low-cost PM 2.5 sensors during the 2018 LERZ eruption. From 2007 to 2018 the two most significant escalations in Kīlauea's volcanic emissions were: the summit eruption that began in 2008 (Kīlauea emissions averaged 5-6 kt/day SO 2 from 2008 until summit activity decreased in May 2018) and the LERZ eruption in 2018 when SO 2 emission rates reached a monthly average of 200 kt/day during June. In this paper we focus on characterizing the airborne pollutants arising from the 2018 LERZ eruption and the spatial distribution and severity of volcanic air pollution events across the Island of Hawai'i. The LERZ eruption caused the most frequent and severe exceedances of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) PM 2.5 air quality threshold (35 µg/m 3 as a daily average) in Hawai'i in the period 2010-2018. In Kona, for example, the maximum 24-h-mean mass concentration of PM 2.5 was recorded as 59 µg/m 3 on the twenty-ninth of May 2018, which was one of eight recorded exceedances of the EPA air quality threshold during the 2018 LERZ eruption, where there had been no exceedances in the previous 8 years as measured by the Whitty et al. Kīlauea-PM 2.5 and SO 2 Concentrations HDOH and NPS networks. SO 2 air pollution during the LERZ eruption was most severe in communities in the south and west of the island, as measured by selected HDOH and NPS stations in this study, with a maximum 24-h-mean mass concentration of 728 µg/m 3 recorded in Ocean View (100 km west of the LERZ emission source) in May 2018. Data from the low-cost sensor network correlated well with data from the HDOH PM 2.5 instruments, confirming that these low-cost sensors provide a robust means to augment reference-grade instrument networks.

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“…Allen et al, 2002;Mather et al, 2003bMather et al, , 2004Zelenski et al, 2015). On the other hand, secondary sulfate aerosols result from in-plume oxidation of sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ), one of the most abundant gas species emitted by volcanoes, during transport downwind (Oppenheimer et al, 2011;Pattantyus et al, 2018). Dominant pathways have been identified for this SO 2 -to-sulfate conversion in the troposphere via both gas-and aqueous-phase processes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, SO 2 oxidation to sulfate within volcanic clouds involves complex processes in the gas and aqueous phases, depending on many variables, including solar insolation, relative humidity, temperature, pH of aerosol/cloud droplets and concentrations of the co-existent ash particles and various gas species. As such, the rate of production of volcanic sulfate aerosols is still poorly known, with a large range of rates observed near-source in different volcanic environments in the world, as summarized in Pattantyus et al (2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Large-scale particulate air pollution and chemical fingerprint of volcanic sulfate aerosols from the 2014–2015 Holuhraun flood lava eruption of Bárðarbunga volcano (Iceland)

et al. 2019

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Abstract. Volcanic sulfate aerosols play a key role in air quality and climate. However, the rate of oxidation of sulfur dioxide (SO2) precursor gas to sulfate aerosols (SO42-) in volcanic plumes is poorly known, especially in the troposphere. Here we determine the chemical speciation as well as the intensity and temporal persistence of the impact on air quality of sulfate aerosols from the 2014–2015 Holuhraun flood lava eruption of Icelandic volcano Bárðarbunga. To do so, we jointly analyse a set of SO2 observations from satellite (OMPS and IASI) and ground-level measurements from air quality monitoring stations together with high temporal resolution mass spectrometry measurements of an Aerosol Chemical Speciation Monitor (ACSM) performed far from the volcanic source. We explore month/year long ACSM data in France from stations in contrasting environments, close and far from industrial sulfur-rich activities. We demonstrate that volcanic sulfate aerosols exhibit a distinct chemical signature in urban/rural conditions, with NO3:SO4 mass concentration ratios lower than for non-volcanic background aerosols. These results are supported by thermodynamic simulations of aerosol composition, using the ISORROPIA II model, which show that ammonium sulfate aerosols are preferentially formed at a high concentration of sulfate, leading to a decrease in the production of particulate ammonium nitrate. Such a chemical signature is however more difficult to identify at heavily polluted industrial sites due to a high level of background noise in sulfur. Nevertheless, aged volcanic sulfates can be distinguished from freshly emitted industrial sulfates according to their contrasting degree of anion neutralization. Combining AERONET (AErosol RObotic NETwork) sunphotometric data with ACSM observations, we also show a long persistence over weeks of pollution in volcanic sulfate aerosols, while SO2 pollution disappears in a few days at most. Finally, gathering 6-month long datasets from 27 sulfur monitoring stations of the EMEP (European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme) network allows us to demonstrate a much broader large-scale European pollution, in both SO2 and SO4, associated with the Holuhraun eruption, from Scandinavia to France. While widespread SO2 anomalies, with ground-level mass concentrations far exceeding background values, almost entirely result from the volcanic source, the origin of sulfate aerosols is more complex. Using a multi-site concentration-weighted trajectory analysis, emissions from the Holuhraun eruption are shown to be one of the main sources of SO4 at all EMEP sites across Europe and can be distinguished from anthropogenic emissions from eastern Europe but also from Great Britain. A wide variability in SO2:SO4 mass concentration ratios, ranging from 0.8 to 8.0, is shown at several stations geographically dispersed at thousands of kilometres from the eruption site. Despite this apparent spatial complexity, we demonstrate that these mass oxidation ratios can be explained by a simple linear dependency on the age of the plume, with a SO2-to-SO4 oxidation rate of 0.23 h−1. Most current studies generally focus on SO2, an unambiguous and more readily measured marker of the volcanic plume. However, the long persistence of the chemical fingerprint of volcanic sulfate aerosols at continental scale, as shown for the Holuhraun eruption here, casts light on the impact of tropospheric eruptions and passive degassing activities on air quality, health, atmospheric chemistry and climate.

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Review of sulfur dioxide to sulfate aerosol chemistry at Kīlauea Volcano, Hawai‘i

Cited by 48 publications

References 63 publications

Aerosol pH Dynamics During Haze Periods in an Urban Environment in China: Use of Detailed, Hourly, Speciated Observations to Study the Role of Ammonia Availability and Secondary Aerosol Formation and Urban Environment

Aerosol pH Dynamics During Haze Periods in an Urban Environment in China: Use of Detailed, Hourly, Speciated Observations to Study the Role of Ammonia Availability and Secondary Aerosol Formation and Urban Environment

Spatial and Temporal Variations in SO2 and PM2.5 Levels Around Kīlauea Volcano, Hawai'i During 2007–2018

Large-scale particulate air pollution and chemical fingerprint of volcanic sulfate aerosols from the 2014–2015 Holuhraun flood lava eruption of Bárðarbunga volcano (Iceland)

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