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Do organics contribute to small particle formation in the Amazonian upper troposphere?
Author(s) -
Ekman Annica M. L.,
Krejci Radovan,
Engström Anders,
Ström Johan,
de Reus Marian,
Williams Jonathan,
Andreae Meinrat O.
Publication year - 2008
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 - 10.1029/2008gl034970
Subject(s) - aerosol , nucleation , troposphere , isoprene , atmospheric sciences , mixing ratio , amazon basin , particle number , particle (ecology) , environmental science , physics , amazon rainforest , meteorology , geology , thermodynamics , ecology , oceanography , nuclear magnetic resonance , volume (thermodynamics) , biology , copolymer , polymer
3‐D cloud‐resolving model simulations including explicit aerosol physics and chemistry are compared with observations of upper tropospheric (12 km) aerosol size distributions over the Amazon Basin. The model underestimates the aerosol number concentration for all modes, especially the nucleation mode ( d < 18 nm). We show that a boundary layer SO 2 mixing ratio of approximately 5 ppb would be needed in order to reproduce the high nucleation mode number concentrations observed. This high SO 2 mixing ratio is very unlikely for the pristine Amazon Basin at this time of the year. Hence, it is suggested that vapours other than H 2 SO 4 participate in the formation and growth of small aerosols. Using activation nucleation theory together with a small (0.4–10%) secondary organic aerosol mass yield, we show that isoprene has the potential of substantially increasing the number of small particles formed as well as reducing the underestimate for the larger aerosol modes.