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Estimating Source Region Influences on Black Carbon Abundance, Microphysics, and Radiative Effect Observed Over South Korea
Author(s) -
Lamb Kara D.,
Perring Anne E.,
Samset Bjørn,
Peterson Dave,
Davis Sean,
Anderson Bruce E.,
Beyersdorf Andreas,
Blake Donald R.,
CampuzanoJost Pedro,
Corr Chelsea A.,
Diskin Glenn S.,
Kondo Yutaka,
Moteki Nobuhiro,
Nault Benjamin A.,
Oh Jun,
Park Minsu,
Pusede Sally E.,
Simpson Isobel J.,
Thornhill Kenneth L.,
Wisthaler Armin,
Schwarz Joshua P.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: atmospheres
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2169-8996
pISSN - 2169-897X
DOI - 10.1029/2018jd029257
Subject(s) - radiative forcing , environmental science , atmospheric sciences , aerosol , radiative transfer , chemical transport model , climatology , air quality index , tracer , soot , troposphere , geography , meteorology , physics , chemistry , geology , organic chemistry , quantum mechanics , nuclear physics , combustion
East Asia is the strongest global source region for anthropogenic black carbon (BC), the most important light‐absorbing aerosol contributing to direct radiative climate forcing. To provide extended observational constraints on regional BC distributions and impacts, in situ measurements of BC were obtained with a single particle soot photometer during the May/June 2016 Korean‐United States Air Quality aircraft campaign (KORUS‐AQ) in South Korea. Unique chemical tracer relationships were associated with BC sourced from different regions. The extent and variability in vertical BC mass burden for 48 profiles over a single site near Seoul were investigated using back trajectory and chemical tracer analysis. Meteorologically driven changes in transport influenced the relative importance of different source regions, impacting observed BC loadings at all altitudes. Internal mixing and size distributions of BC further demonstrated dependence on source region: BC attributed to China had a larger mass median diameter (180 ± 13 nm) than BC attributed to South Korea (152 ± 25 nm), and BC associated with long‐range transport was less thickly coated (60 ± 4 nm) than that sourced from South Korea (75 ± 16 nm). The column BC direct radiative effect at the top of the atmosphere was estimated to be 1.0 − 0.5 + 0.9 W/m 2 , with average values for different meteorological periods varying by a factor of 2 due to changes in the BC vertical profile. During the campaign, BC sourced from South Korea (≤ 31%), China (22%), and Russia (14%) were the most significant single‐region contributors to the column direct radiative effect.