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Title: Contribution of expanded marine sulfur chemistry to the seasonal variability of dimethyl sulfide oxidation products and size-resolved sulfate aerosol

Journal Article · · Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (Online)
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [3]; ORCiD logo [4]; ORCiD logo [4]; ORCiD logo [5]; ORCiD logo [6]; ORCiD logo [7]
  1. Univ. of California, Riverside, CA (United States)
  2. The Hong Kong Polytechnic Univ. (Hong Kong)
  3. Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States)
  4. Florida State Univ., Tallahassee, FL (United States)
  5. Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins, CO (United States)
  6. Dalhousie Univ., Halifax, NS (Canada)
  7. Kanazawa Univ. (Japan)

Marine emissions of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and the subsequent formation of its oxidation products methanesulfonic acid (MSA) and sulfuric acid (H2SO4) are well-known natural precursors of atmospheric aerosols, contributing to particle mass and cloud formation over ocean and coastal regions. Despite a long recognized and well-studied role in the marine troposphere, DMS oxidation chemistry remains a work in progress within many current air quality and climate models, with recent advances exploring heterogeneous chemistry and uncovering previously unknown intermediate species. With the identification of additional DMS oxidation path ways and intermediate species that influence the eventual fate of DMS, it is important to understand the impact of these pathways on the overall sulfate aerosol budget and aerosol size distribution. In this work, we update and evaluate the DMS oxidation mechanism of the chemical transport model GEOS-Chem by implementing expanded DMS oxidation pathways in the model. These updates include gas- and aqueous-phase reactions, the formation of the intermediates dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and methanesulfinic acid (MSIA), and cloud loss and aerosol uptake of the recently quantified intermediate hydroperoxymethyl thioformate (HPMTF). We find that this updated mechanism collectively decreases the global mean surface-layer gas-phase sulfur dioxide (SO2) mixing ratio by 40 % and enhances the sulfate aerosol ($$SO^{2-}_{4}$$) mixing ratio by 17 %. We further perform sensitivity analyses exploring the contribution of cloud loss and aerosol uptake of HPMTF to the overall sulfur budget. Comparing modeled concentrations to available observations, we find improved biases relative to previous studies. To quantify the impacts of these chemistry updates on global particle size distributions and the mass concentration, we use the TwO-Moment Aerosol Sectional (TOMAS) aerosol microphysics module coupled to GEOS-Chem and find that changes in particle formation and growth affect the size distribution of aerosol. With this new DMS-oxidation scheme, the global annual mean surface-layer number concentration of particles with diameters smaller than 80 nm decreases by 16.8 %, with cloud loss processes related to HPMTF being mostly responsible for this reduction. However, the global annual mean number of particles larger than 80 nm (corresponding to particles capable of acting as cloud condensation nuclei, CCN) increases by 3.8 %, suggesting that the new scheme promotes seasonal particle growth to these sizes.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Data Center
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); National Science Foundation (NSF); National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); Hong Kong Research Grants Council
Contributing Organization:
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL); Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL); Argonne National Laboratory (ANL)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0021208
OSTI ID:
2336702
Journal Information:
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (Online), Journal Name: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (Online) Journal Issue: 6 Vol. 24; ISSN 1680-7324
Publisher:
Copernicus Publications, EGUCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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