The Cloud Nucleating Properties and Mixing State of Marine Aerosols Sampled along the Southern California Coast

Abstract

Marine aerosols are a globally significant contributor to aerosol-cloud-climate interactions; however, the impact that different sources of pollution and natural emissions from the ocean have on the water uptake properties of marine aerosols remains largely underexplored. Here we present measurements of the cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) activation of marine aerosols taken in a coastal, marine environment impacted by sea spray aerosol and different sources of pollution. The hygroscopicity parameter, κ, was found to range from <0.1 up to 1.4 with a campaign-average value of 0.22 ± 0.12. Smaller particles were less hygroscopic than larger ones, and κ varied diurnally and temporally as a function of air mass transport conditions. Measurements made using aerosol time-of-flight mass spectrometry (ATOFMS) revealed that heterogeneous reactions, sulfates, and temporal differences in the observed particle types had the largest impacts on the observed κ values. The aerosol mixing-state was also found to affect κ. Temporal differences between freshly-emitted soot and aged soot internally mixed with sulfates, likely emitted from ships, had the largest impact on diurnal variations in κ. Our results further demonstrate the significant impact that pollution and the aerosol mixing-state have on aerosol-cloud interactions in the marine boundary layer.

Keywords

• Aerosol
• hygroscopicity
• mixing state
• marine
• polluted
• aging
• mass spectrometry