| 1. |
- Hakkinen, S. A. K., et al.
(author)
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Long-term volatility measurements of submicron atmospheric aerosol in Hyytiala, Finland
- 2012
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In: Atmospheric Chemistry And Physics. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1680-7316 .- 1680-7324. ; 12:22, s. 10771-10786
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The volatility of submicron atmospheric aerosol particles was investigated at a boreal forest site in Hyytiala, Finland from January 2008 to May 2010. These long-term observations allowed for studying the seasonal behavior of aerosol evaporation with a special focus on compounds that remained in the aerosol phase at 280 degrees C. The temperature-response of evaporation was also studied by heating the aerosol sample step-wise to six temperatures ranging from 80 degrees C to 280 degrees C. The mass fraction remaining after heating (MFR) was determined from the measured particle number size distributions before and after heating assuming a constant particle density (1.6 g cm(-3)). On average 19% of the total aerosol mass remained in the particulate phase at 280 degrees C. The particles evaporated less at low ambient temperatures during winter as compared with the warmer months. Black carbon (BC) fraction of aerosol mass correlated positively with the MFR at 280 degrees C, but could not explain it completely: most of the time a notable fraction of this nonvolatile residual was something other than BC. Using additional information on ambient meteorological conditions and results from an Aerodyne aerosol mass spectrometer (AMS), the chemical composition of MFR at 280 degrees C and its seasonal behavior was further examined. Correlation analysis with ambient temperature and mass fractions of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) indicated that MFR at 280 degrees C is probably affected by anthropogenic emissions. On the other hand, results from the AMS analysis suggested that there may be very low-volatile organics, possibly organonitrates, in the non-volatile (at 280 degrees C) fraction of aerosol mass.
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| 2. |
- Keskinen, H., et al.
(author)
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Evolution of Nanoparticle Composition in CLOUD in Presence of Sulphuric Acid, Ammonia and Organics
- 2013
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In: NUCLEATION AND ATMOSPHERIC AEROSOLS. - : American Institute of Physics (AIP). - 9780735411524 ; , s. 291-294
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this study, we investigate the composition of nucleated nanoparticles formed from sulphuric acid, ammonia, amines, and oxidised organics in the CLOUD chamber experiments at CERN. The investigation is carried out via analysis of the particle hygroscopicity (size range of 15-63 nm), ethanol affinity (15-50nm), oxidation state (<50 nm), and ion composition (few nanometers). The organic volume fraction of particles increased with an increase in particle diameter in presence of the sulphuric acid, ammonia and organics. Vice versa, the sulphuric acid volume fraction decreased when the particle diameter increased. The results provide information on the size-dependent composition of nucleated aerosol particles.
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| 3. |
- Manninen, H. E., et al.
(author)
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EUCAARI ion spectrometer measurements at 12 European sites - analysis of new particle formation events
- 2010
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In: Atmospheric Chemistry And Physics. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1680-7316 .- 1680-7324. ; 10:16, s. 7907-7927
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We present comprehensive results on continuous atmospheric cluster and particle measurements in the size range similar to 1-42 nm within the European Integrated project on Aerosol Cloud Climate and Air Quality interactions (EUCAARI) project. We focused on characterizing the spatial and temporal variation of new particle formation events and relevant particle formation parameters across Europe. Different types of air ion and cluster mobility spectrometers were deployed at 12 field sites across Europe from March 2008 to May 2009. The measurements were conducted in a wide variety of environments, including coastal and continental locations as well as sites at different altitudes (both in the boundary layer and the free troposphere). New particle formation events were detected at all of the 12 field sites during the year-long measurement period. From the data, nucleation and growth rates of newly formed particles were determined for each environment. In a case of parallel ion and neutral cluster measurements, we could also estimate the relative contribution of ion-induced and neutral nucleation to the total particle formation. The formation rates of charged particles at 2 nm accounted for 1-30% of the corresponding total particle formation rates. As a significant new result, we found out that the total particle formation rate varied much more between the different sites than the formation rate of charged particles. This work presents, so far, the most comprehensive effort to experimentally characterize nucleation and growth of atmospheric molecular clusters and nanoparticles at ground-based observation sites on a continental scale.
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| 4. |
- Almeida, Joao, et al.
(author)
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Molecular understanding of sulphuric acid-amine particle nucleation in the atmosphere
- 2013
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In: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 502:7471, s. 359-
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Nucleation of aerosol particles from trace atmospheric vapours is thought to provide up to half of global cloud condensation nuclei(1). Aerosols can cause a net cooling of climate by scattering sunlight and by leading to smaller but more numerous cloud droplets, which makes clouds brighter and extends their lifetimes(2). Atmospheric aerosols derived from human activities are thought to have compensated for a large fraction of the warming caused by greenhouse gases(2). However, despite its importance for climate, atmospheric nucleation is poorly understood. Recently, it has been shown that sulphuric acid and ammonia cannot explain particle formation rates observed in the lower atmosphere(3). It is thought that amines may enhance nucleation(4-16), but until now there has been no direct evidence for amine ternary nucleation under atmospheric conditions. Here we use the CLOUD (Cosmics Leaving OUtdoor Droplets) chamber at CERN and find that dimethylamine above three parts per trillion by volume can enhance particle formation rates more than 1,000-fold compared with ammonia, sufficient to account for the particle formation rates observed in the atmosphere. Molecular analysis of the clusters reveals that the faster nucleation is explained by a base-stabilization mechanism involving acid-amine pairs, which strongly decrease evaporation. The ion-induced contribution is generally small, reflecting the high stability of sulphuric acid-dimethylamine clusters and indicating that galactic cosmic rays exert only a small influence on their formation, except at low overall formation rates. Our experimental measurements are well reproduced by a dynamical model based on quantum chemical calculations of binding energies of molecular clusters, without any fitted parameters. These results show that, in regions of the atmosphere near amine sources, both amines and sulphur dioxide should be considered when assessing the impact of anthropogenic activities on particle formation.
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| 5. |
- Kulmala, Markku, et al.
(author)
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CO2-induced terrestrial climate feedback mechanism : From carbon sink to aerosol source and back
- 2014
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In: Boreal environment research. - 1239-6095 .- 1797-2469. ; 19, s. 122-131
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Feedbacks mechanisms are essential components of our climate system, as they either increase or decrease changes in climate-related quantities in the presence of external forcings. In this work, we provide the first quantitative estimate regarding the terrestrial climate feedback loop connecting the increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, changes in gross primary production (GPP) associated with the carbon uptake, organic aerosol formation in the atmosphere, and transfer of both diffuse and global radiation. Our approach was to combine process-level understanding with comprehensive, long-term field measurement data set collected from a boreal forest site in southern Finland. Our best estimate of the gain in GPP resulting from the feedback is 1.3 (range 1.02-1.5), which is larger than the gains of the few atmospheric chemistry-climate feedbacks estimated using large-scale models. Our analysis demonstrates the power of using comprehensive field measurements in investigating the complicated couplings between the biosphere and atmosphere on one hand, and the need for complementary approaches relying on the combination of field data, satellite observations model simulations on the other hand.
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| 6. |
- Kyro, E. -M, et al.
(author)
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Trends in new particle formation in eastern Lapland, Finland : effect of decreasing sulfur emissions from Kola Peninsula
- 2014
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In: Atmospheric Chemistry And Physics. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1680-7316 .- 1680-7324. ; 14:9, s. 4383-4396
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The smelter industry in Kola Peninsula is the largest source of anthropogenic SO2 in the Arctic part of Europe and one of the largest within the Arctic domain. Due to socio-economic changes in Russia, the emissions have been decreasing especially since the late 1990s resulting in decreased SO2 concentrations close to Kola in eastern Lapland, Finland. At the same time, the frequency of new particle formation days has been decreasing distinctively at SMEAR I station in eastern Lapland, especially during spring and autumn. We show that sulfur species, namely sulfur dioxide and sulfuric acid, have an important role in both new particle formation and subsequent growth and that the decrease in new particle formation days is a result of the reduction of sulfur emissions originating from Kola Peninsula. In addition to sulfur species, there are many other quantities, such as formation rate of aerosol particles, condensation sink and nucleation mode particle number concentration, which are related to the number of observed new particle formation (NPF) days and need to be addressed when linking sulfur emissions and NPF. We show that while most of these quantities exhibit statistically significant trends, the reduction in Kola sulfur emissions is the most obvious reason for the rapid decline in NPF days. Sulfuric acid explains approximately 20-50% of the aerosol condensational growth observed at SMEAR I, and there is a large seasonal variation with highest values obtained during spring and autumn. We found that (i) particles form earlier after sunrise during late winter and early spring due to high concentrations of SO2 and H2SO4; (ii) several events occurred during the absence of light, and they were connected to higher than average concentrations of SO2; and (iii) high SO2 concentrations could advance the onset of nucleation by several hours. Moreover, air masses coming over Kola Peninsula seemed to favour new particle formation.
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