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Title: Enhanced Volatile Organic Compounds emissions and organic aerosol mass increase the oligomer content of atmospheric aerosols

Journal Article · · Scientific Reports
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/srep35038· OSTI ID:1378562
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [2];  [5];  [3];  [6];  [3];  [5];  [5];  [2];  [7];  [8];  [8];  [8];  [9];  [10];  [11];  [12] more »;  [3];  [3];  [4];  [3];  [2] « less
  1. Univ. of Cambridge (United Kingdom); Univ. College Cork (Ireland)
  2. Univ. of Cambridge (United Kingdom)
  3. Univ. of Helsinki (Finland)
  4. Univ. College Cork (Ireland)
  5. Univ. of Helsinki (Finland); Hyytiala Forestry Field Station (Finland)
  6. Univ. College Cork (Ireland); Leibniz Inst. for Tropospheric Research (ITR), Leipzig (Germany)
  7. Univ. of Cambridge (United Kingdom); Cranfield Univ. (United Kingdom)
  8. Forschungszentrum Julich (Germany)
  9. Weizmann Inst. of Science, Rehovot (Israel)
  10. Univ. of Gothenburg (Sweden)
  11. Inst. Pierre Simon Laplace, Creteil (France)
  12. Ghent Univ. (Belgium); Univ. of Antwerp (Belgium)
+ Show Author Affiliations

Secondary organic aerosol (SOA) accounts for a dominant fraction of the submicron atmospheric particle mass, but knowledge of the formation, composition and climate effects of SOA is incomplete and limits our understanding of overall aerosol effects in the atmosphere. Organic oligomers were discovered as dominant components in SOA over a decade ago in laboratory experiments and have since been proposed to play a dominant role in many aerosol processes. However, it remains unclear whether oligomers are relevant under ambient atmospheric conditions because they are often not clearly observed in field samples. Here we resolve this long-standing discrepancy by showing that elevated SOA mass is one of the key drivers of oligomer formation in the ambient atmosphere and laboratory experiments. We show for the first time that a specific organic compound class in aerosols, oligomers, is strongly correlated with cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) activities of SOA particles. These findings might have important implications for future climate scenarios where increased temperatures cause higher biogenic volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions, which in turn lead to higher SOA mass formation and significant changes in SOA composition. Such processes would need to be considered in climate models for a realistic representation of future aerosol-climate-biosphere feedbacks.

Research Organization:
ARM Climate Research Facility, Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
OSTI ID:
1378562
Journal Information:
Scientific Reports, Vol. 6, Issue 1; ISSN 2045-2322
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 71 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (9)

Environmental conditions regulate the impact of plants on cloud formation journal February 2017
Quantitative constraints on autoxidation and dimer formation from direct probing of monoterpene-derived peroxy radical chemistry journal November 2018
Multiphase composition changes and reactive oxygen species formation during limonene oxidation in the new Cambridge Atmospheric Simulation Chamber (CASC) journal January 2017
Insights into HOx and ROx chemistry in the boreal forest via measurement of peroxyacetic acid, peroxyacetic nitric anhydride (PAN) and hydrogen peroxide journal January 2018
A model framework to retrieve thermodynamic and kinetic properties of organic aerosol from composition-resolved thermal desorption measurements journal January 2018
Nanoparticle growth by particle-phase chemistry journal January 2018
Characterization of organic nitrate constituents of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) from nitrate-radical-initiated oxidation of limonene using high-resolution chemical ionization mass spectrometry journal January 2018
Impact of anthropogenic and biogenic sources on the seasonal variation in the molecular composition of urban organic aerosols: a field and laboratory study using ultra-high-resolution mass spectrometry journal January 2019
Multiphase composition changes and reactive oxygen species formation during limonene oxidation in the new Cambridge Atmospheric Simulation Chamber (CASC) text January 2017

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