PNNL

Abstract

The objective of this work is to investigate the variability in the particle number concentration that may affect climate change assessment for Arctic regions. The Indirect and Semi-Direct Aerosol Campaign (ISDAC) was conducted in April 2008, in the vicinities of Fairbanks and Barrow, Alaska. Measurements of particle number concentrations and size distributions were conducted using a Passive Cavity Aerosol Spectrometer Probe (PCASP-100X) mounted under the Convair-580 aircraft wing. Total number concentration of particles (Na) with diameters in the range 0.12-3 µm was determined for polluted and clean air masses during times when the air was free of clouds and/or precipitation. Variability in Na was considered for both vertical profiles and constant altitude (horizontal) flight legs. This variability can have important implications for estimates of particle properties used in global climate model (GCM) simulations. When aerosol particle layers were encountered, Na rapidly increased from 25 cm-3 up to 550 cm-3 within relatively clean air masses, and reached up to 2200 cm-3 within polluted air masses, dominated by biomass burning pollution. When averaging Na over different distance scales, it was found that Na=140 cm-3 represent an average value for the majority of the encountered clean cases; while Na=720 cm-3 is a mean for polluted cases dominated by biomass burning plumes. These estimates, however, would not capture the details of particle layers encountered during most of the flights. Average aerosol particle characteristics can be difficult to interpret, especially during polluted cases, due to small-scale spatial and temporal variability.