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- Kulmala, M., et al.
(author)
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General overview: European Integrated project on Aerosol Cloud Climate and Air Quality interactions (EUCAARI) - integrating aerosol research from nano to global scales
- 2011
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In: Atmospheric Chemistry And Physics. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1680-7316 .- 1680-7324. ; 11:24, s. 13061-13143
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this paper we describe and summarize the main achievements of the European Aerosol Cloud Climate and Air Quality Interactions project (EUCAARI). EUCAARI started on 1 January 2007 and ended on 31 December 2010 leaving a rich legacy including: (a) a comprehensive database with a year of observations of the physical, chemical and optical properties of aerosol particles over Europe, (b) comprehensive aerosol measurements in four developing countries, (c) a database of airborne measurements of aerosols and clouds over Europe during May 2008, (d) comprehensive modeling tools to study aerosol processes fron nano to global scale and their effects on climate and air quality. In addition a new Pan-European aerosol emissions inventory was developed and evaluated, a new cluster spectrometer was built and tested in the field and several new aerosol parameterizations and computations modules for chemical transport and global climate models were developed and evaluated. These achievements and related studies have substantially improved our understanding and reduced the uncertainties of aerosol radiative forcing and air quality-climate interactions. The EUCAARI results can be utilized in European and global environmental policy to assess the aerosol impacts and the corresponding abatement strategies.
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| 2. |
- Reddington, C. L., et al.
(author)
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Primary versus secondary contributions to particle number concentrations in the European boundary layer
- 2011
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In: Atmospheric Chemistry And Physics. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1680-7316 .- 1680-7324. ; 11:23, s. 12007-12036
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- It is important to understand the relative contribution of primary and secondary particles to regional and global aerosol so that models can attribute aerosol radiative forcing to different sources. In large-scale models, there is considerable uncertainty associated with treatments of particle formation (nucleation) in the boundary layer (BL) and in the size distribution of emitted primary particles, leading to uncertainties in predicted cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) concentrations. Here we quantify how primary particle emissions and secondary particle formation influence size-resolved particle number concentrations in the BL using a global aerosol microphysics model and aircraft and ground site observations made during the May 2008 campaign of the European Integrated Project on Aerosol Cloud Climate Air Quality Interactions (EUCAARI). We tested four different parameterisations for BL nucleation and two assumptions for the emission size distribution of anthropogenic and wildfire carbonaceous particles. When we emit carbonaceous particles at small sizes (as recommended by the Aerosol Inter-comparison project, AEROCOM), the spatial distributions of campaign-mean number concentrations of particles with diameter >50 nm (N(50)) and >100 nm (N(100)) were well captured by the model (R(2)>= 0.8) and the normalised mean bias (NMB) was also small (-18% for N(50) and -1% for N(100)). Emission of carbonaceous particles at larger sizes, which we consider to be more realistic for low spatial resolution global models, results in equally good correlation but larger bias (R(2)>= 0.8, NMB = -52% and -29%), which could be partly but not entirely compensated by BL nucleation. Within the uncertainty of the observations and accounting for the uncertainty in the size of emitted primary particles, BL nucleation makes a statistically significant contribution to CCN-sized particles at less than a quarter of the ground sites. Our results show that a major source of uncertainty in CCN-sized particles in polluted European air is the emitted size of primary carbonaceous particles. New information is required not just from direct observations, but also to determine the effective emission size and composition of primary particles appropriate for different resolution models.
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