Effects of relative humidity on aerosol light scattering. results from different European sites
Loading...
Authors
Author (Corporation)
Publication date
2013
Typ of student thesis
Course of study
Collections
Type
01A - Journal article
Editors
Editor (Corporation)
Supervisor
Parent work
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
Special issue
DOI of the original publication
Link
Series
Series number
Volume
13
Issue / Number
21
Pages / Duration
10609–10631
Patent number
Publisher / Publishing institution
Copernicus
Place of publication / Event location
Göttingen
Edition
Version
Programming language
Assignee
Practice partner / Client
Abstract
The effect of aerosol water uptake on the aerosol particle light scattering coefficient (σsp) is described in this study by comparing measurements from five European sites: the Jungfraujoch, located in the Swiss Alps at 3580 m a.s.l.; Ny-Ålesund, located on Spitsbergen in the Arctic; Mace Head, a coastal site in Ireland; Cabauw, a rural site in the Netherlands; and Melpitz, a regional background site in Eastern Germany. These sites were selected according to the aerosol type usually encountered at that location. The scattering enhancement factor f(RH, λ) is the key parameter to describe the effect of water uptake on the particle light scattering. It is defined as the σsp(RH) at a certain relative humidity (RH) and wavelength λ divided by its dry value. f(RH) at the five sites varied widely, starting at very low values of f(RH = 85%, λ = 550 nm) around 1.28 for mineral dust, and reaching up to 3.41 for Arctic aerosol. Hysteresis behavior was observed at all sites except at the Jungfraujoch (due to the absence of sea salt). Closure studies and Mie simulations showed that both size and chemical composition determine the magnitude of f(RH). Both parameters are also needed to successfully predict f(RH). Finally, the measurement results were compared to the widely used aerosol model, OPAC (Hess et al., 1998). Significant discrepancies were seen, especially at intermediate RH ranges; these were mainly attributed to inappropriate implementation of hygroscopic growth in the OPAC model. Replacement of the hygroscopic growth with values from the recent literature resulted in a clear improvement of the OPAC model.
Keywords
Subject (DDC)
550 - Geowissenschaften
Event
Exhibition start date
Exhibition end date
Conference start date
Conference end date
Date of the last check
ISBN
ISSN
1680-7324
1680-7316
1680-7316
Language
English
Created during FHNW affiliation
No
Strategic action fields FHNW
Publication status
Published
Review
Peer review of the complete publication
Open access category
Gold
License
Citation
ZIEGER, Paul, Rahel FIERZ-SCHMIDHAUSER, Ernest WEINGARTNER und Urs BALTENSPERGER, 2013. Effects of relative humidity on aerosol light scattering. results from different European sites. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. 2013. Bd. 13, Nr. 21, S. 10609–10631. DOI 10.5194/acp-13-10609-2013. Verfügbar unter: https://doi.org/10.26041/fhnw-8173