Identification

Title

Marine and terrestrial organic ice-nucleating particles in pristine marine to continentally influenced northeast Atlantic air masses

Abstract

Sea spray aerosol (SSA) generated by bubble bursting at the ocean surface is an important component of aerosol-cloud interactions over remote oceans, providing the atmosphere with ice-nucleating particles (INPs) or particles required for heterogeneous ice nucleation. Studies have shown that organic INPs are emitted during phytoplankton blooms, but changes in INP number concentrations (n(INPs)) due to ocean biological activity have not been directly demonstrated in natural SSA. In this study, a clean sector sampler was used to differentiate ice nucleation and composition of pristine SSA from terrestrial aerosol at the Mace Head Research Station in August 2015. Average n(INPs) active at -15 degrees C (n(INPs,-15 degrees C))were 0.0011L(-1), and large variability (up to a factor of 200) was observed for INPs active warmer than -22 degrees C. Highest n(INPs) in the clean sector occurred during a period of elevated marine organic aerosol from offshore biological activity (M1, n(INPs,-15 degrees C)=0.0077L(-1)). A peak in n(INPs) was also observed in terrestrial organic aerosol (T1, n(INPs,-15 degrees C)=0.0076L(-1)). The impacts of heating and hydrogen peroxide digestion on n(INPs) indicate that INPs at Mace Head Research Station were largely organic and that INPs observed during M1 and T1 were biological (i.e., protein containing). Complexities of predicting increases in n(INPs) due to offshore biological activity are explored. A parameterization for pristine SSA INPs over the North Atlantic Ocean was developed, illustrating that SSA is associated with a factor of 1,000 fewer ice-nucleating sites per surface area of aerosol compared to mineral dust.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d74t6n51

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2018-06-16T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

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