Long term trends of CCN concentration in Arctic region at Zeppelin station, Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard

Abstract:

The Arctic is a challenging region when assessing aerosol impacts due to their large variations in concentration, and varying chemical, physical and optical properties. In the climate effects of atmosphere aerosol indirect force, cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) play an important role because particles acting as they can grow to cloud droplets by condensation of water vapor, affecting cloud properties in various ways. For example, the increased CCN concentrations lead to the production of more numerous and smaller cloud drops, which can result in optically thicker clouds that tend to reflect more incoming solar radiation back to space (Twomey, 1977). Thus, investigating the physical process of the CCN aerosol that controls cloud droplet formation is important in understanding the radiative transfer and climate effect. In addition, there are still large variabilities in Arctic CCN number concentrations remaining. These variabilities are mainly due to the result of varying aerosol sources and chemical composition (Browse et al., 2012). Especially, the analysis on the long term trends as well as seasonality of CCN and relation with aerosols are very rare and need to be investigated.

In this study, CCN concentration data collected at the Zeppelin observatory located on the top of Mt. Zeppelin, Svalbard (78° 54’ N, 11° 53’ E) are analyzed during 2007-2013. The seasonal and yearly trends of CCN in the Arctic region during the long periods are presented. The obtained results are compared with other instrumental data such as aerosol size distribution and total number concentration.

Reference

Browse, J., Carslaw, K. S., Arnold, S. R., Pringle, K., and Boucher, O, 2012, The scavenging processes controlling the seasonal cycle in Arctic sulphate and black carbon aerosol, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 12, 6775–6798.

Twomey, S., 1977: Atmospheric Aerosols. Elsevier.