Premium
Tropospheric distributions of sulfuric acid‐water vapor aerosol nucleation rates from dimethylsulfide oxidation
Author(s) -
Lucas Donald D.,
Prinn Ronald G.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2003gl018370
Subject(s) - troposphere , aerosol , nucleation , atmospheric sciences , stratosphere , water vapor , environmental science , atmosphere (unit) , climatology , chemistry , meteorology , geology , physics , organic chemistry
Tropospheric distributions of H 2 SO 4 ‐H 2 O binary nucleation rates are calculated from a 3D model with DMS chemistry. Two mechanisms are used that include and exclude an SO 2 ‐independent H 2 SO 4 production path. In the lower troposphere, the SO 2 ‐independent path generates extra H 2 SO 4 and, consequently, much higher aerosol nucleation rates. However, these rates are less than 10 −5 particles cm −3 s −1 in most of the lower troposphere, which indicates that DMS oxidation does not lead to appreciable aerosol formation there. In the upper troposphere, binary nucleation is fairly insensitive to the mechanism differences, with both yielding rates that exceed 1 particle cm −3 s −1 in the upper tropics. These large upper tropospheric nucleation rates imply that the DMS cycle may have served as an important source of aerosols to the troposphere and stratosphere during preindustrial and volcanically‐quiescent periods, or during modern periods in clean marine regions where anthropogenic SO 2 and H 2 SO 4 are relatively low.