Vertical profiles of cloud condensation nuclei, aerosol hygroscopicity, water uptake, and scattering across the United States

Jack J Lin1, Aikaterini Bougiatioti2, Athanasios Nenes3, Bruce E Anderson4, Andreas Joel Beyersdorf4, Charles A Brock5, Timothy Dean Gordon6, Daniel Lack7, Daniel C. Law8, Jin Liao6, Ann Middlebrook9, Mathews Richardson10, Kenneth Lee Thornhill II4, Edward Winstead11, Nicholas L Wagner8, Andre Welti12 and Luke D Ziemba4, (1)Georgia Institute of Technology Main Campus, Atlanta, GA, United States, (2)National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Marousi Athens, Greece, (3)Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC), Laboratory of Atmospheric Processes and their Impacts (LAPI), Lausanne, Switzerland, (4)NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, United States, (5)NOAA Earth System Research Lab, Boulder, CO, United States, (6)NOAA Boulder, Boulder, CO, United States, (7)CIRES, Boulder, CO, United States, (8)NOAA ESRL, Boulder, CO, United States, (9)NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory, Boulder, United States, (10)NOAA/CIRES, Boulder, United States, (11)Analytical Mechanics Associates, Hampton, United States, (12)ETH Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
Abstract:
The evolutions of vertical distributions of aerosol chemical, microphysical, hygroscopic, and optical properties present fundamental challenges to the understanding of ground-level air quality and radiative transfer, and few datasets exist to date for evaluation of atmospheric models. Data collected from recent NASA and NOAA field campaigns in the California Central Valley (DISCOVER-AQ), southeast United States (SENEX, SEAC4RS) and Texas (DISCOVER-AQ) allow for a unique opportunity to constrain vertical profiles of climate-relevant aerosol properties. This work presents in-situ aircraft measurements of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) concentration and derivations of aerosol hygroscopicity, water uptake, and light scattering. Aerosol hygroscopicity is derived from CCN and aerosol measurements. Inorganic water uptake is calculated from aerosol composition using ISORROPIA, a chemical thermodynamic model, while organic water uptake is calculated from organic hygroscopicity. Aerosol scattering closure is performed between scattering from water uptake calculations and in-situ scattering measurements.
Back to: Assessing Aerosol Vertical Distribution Impacts on Air Quality and Radiative Forcing: Insight from In Situ Measurements, Remote Sensing, and Modeling I