Identification

Title

Dependence of nucleation rates on sulfuric acid vapor concentration in diverse atmospheric locations

Abstract

Correlations between concentrations of newly formed particles and sulfuric acid vapor were analyzed for twenty one nucleation events measured in diverse continental and marine atmospheric environments. A simple power law model for formation rates of 1 nm particles, J₁ = K ⋅ [H₂ SO₄] P, where P and K are least squares parameters, was tested for each environment. We found that, to within experimental uncertainty, P = 2. Constraining P to 2, the prefactor K kinetic ranges from 10⁻¹⁴ to 10⁻¹¹ cm³s⁻¹. According to the nucleation theorem, an exponent value of 2 indicates that the critical cluster contains two sulfuric acid molecules. Existing nucleation rate expressions based on classical nucleation theory predict significantly larger values of P. The prefactor values vary with environment and are 1 to 4 orders of magnitude below the hard-sphere collision limit. These results provide a simple parameterization for atmospheric new particle formation that could be used in global climate models.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7tb1726

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

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keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

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Temporal reference

Temporal extent

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End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2008-05-31T00:00:00Z

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Conformity

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Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact