A Study of Cloud Processing of Organic Aerosols Using Models and CHAPS Data
- Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)
The main theme of our work has been the identification of parameters that mostly affect the formation and modification of aerosol particles and their interaction with water vapor. Our detailed process model studies led to simplifications/parameterizations of these effects that bridge detailed aerosol information from laboratory and field studies and the need for computationally efficient expressions in complex atmospheric models. One focus of our studies has been organic aerosol mass that is formed in the atmosphere by physical and/or chemical processes (secondary organic aerosol, SOA) and represents a large fraction of atmospheric particulate matter. Most current models only describe SOA formation by condensation of low volatility (or semivolatile) gas phase products and neglect processes in the aqueous phase of particles or cloud droplets that differently affect aerosol size and vertical distribution and chemical composition (hygroscopicity). We developed and applied models of aqueous phase SOA formation in cloud droplets and aerosol particles (aqSOA). Placing our model results into the context of laboratory, model and field studies suggests a potentially significant contribution of aqSOA to the global organic mass loading. The second focus of our work has been the analysis of ambient data of particles that might act as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) at different locations and emission scenarios. Our model studies showed that the description of particle chemical composition and mixing state can often be greatly simplified, in particular in aged aerosol. While over the past years many CCN studies have been successful performed by using such simplified composition/mixing state assumptions, much more uncertainty exists in aerosol-cloud interactions in cold clouds (ice or mixed-phase). Therefore we extended our parcel model that describes warm cloud formation by ice microphysics and explored microphysical parameters that determine the phase state and lifetime of Arctic mixed-phase clouds.
- Research Organization:
- The Regents of the University of Colorado
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
- DOE Contract Number:
- FG02-08ER64539
- OSTI ID:
- 1033229
- Report Number(s):
- DOE/ER-64539
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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