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Primary marine organic aerosol: a dichotomy of low hygroscopicity and high ccn activity

Ovadnevaite, Jurgita
; 
Ceburnis, Darius
; 
Martucci, Giovanni
; 
Bialek, Jakub
; 
Monahan, Ciaran
; 
Rinaldi, Matteo
; 
Facchini, Maria Cristina
; 
Berresheim, Harald
; 
Worsnop, Douglas R.
; 
O'Dowd, Colin
Repository DOI
Publication Date
2011-11-01
Keywords
cloud formation, phytoplankton, activation, particles, atmosphere, matter, growth
Type
Article
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Ovadnevaite, Jurgita; Ceburnis, Darius; Martucci, Giovanni; Bialek, Jakub; Monahan, Ciaran; Rinaldi, Matteo; Facchini, Maria Cristina; Berresheim, Harald; Worsnop, Douglas R. O'Dowd, Colin (2011). Primary marine organic aerosol: a dichotomy of low hygroscopicity and high ccn activity. Geophysical Research Letters 38 ,
Abstract
High-time resolution measurements of primary marine organic sea-spray physico-chemical properties reveal an apparent dichotomous behavior in terms of water uptake: specifically sea-spray aerosol enriched in organic matter possesses a low hydroscopic Growth Factor (GF similar to 1.25) while simultaneously having a cloud condensation nucleus/condensation nuclei (CCN/CN) activation efficiency of between 83% at 0.25% supersaturation and 100% at 0.75%. In contrast, the activation efficiency of particles dominated by non-sea-salt (nss)-sulfate ranged between 48-100% over supersaturation range of 0.25%-1%. Simultaneous retrieval of Cloud Droplet Number Concentration (CDNC) during primary organic aerosol plumes reveals CDNC concentrations of 350 cm(-3) for organic mass concentrations 3-4 mu g m(-3). It is demonstrated that the retrieved high CDNCs under clean marine conditions can only be explained by organic sea-spray and corroborates the high CCN activation efficiency associated with primary organics. It is postulated that marine hydrogels are responsible for this dichotomous behavior. Citation: Ovadnevaite, J., D. Ceburnis, G. Martucci, J. Bialek, C. Monahan, M. Rinaldi, M. C. Facchini, H. Berresheim, D. R. Worsnop, and C. O'Dowd (2011), Primary marine organic aerosol: A dichotomy of low hygroscopicity and high CCN activity, Geophys. Res. Lett., 38, L21806, doi: 10.1029/2011GL048869.
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Publisher
Wiley-Blackwell
Publisher DOI
10.1029/2011gl048869
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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Ireland
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Externally hosted open access publications with University of Galway authors (2)