Size Matters More Than Chemistry for Cloud-Nucleating Ability of Aerosol Particles
Abstract
Size-resolved cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) spectra measured for various aerosol types at a non-urban site in Germany showed that CCN concentrations are mainly determined by the aerosol number size distribution. Distinct variations of CCN activation with particle chemical composition were observed but played a secondary role. When the temporal variation of chemical effects on CCN activation is neglected, variation in the size distribution alone explains 84 to 96% of the variation in CCN concentrations. Understanding that particles' ability to act as CCN is largely controlled by aerosol size rather than composition greatly facilitates the treatment of aerosol effects on cloud physics in regional and global models.
Additional Information
© 2006 American Association for the Advancement of Science. Received 23 January 2006; accepted 14 April 2006. We thank H. Bingemer from the University of Frankfurt and the Taunus Observatory team for their help, B. Fay from the German Weather Service for providing trajectory analysis data, and H. Wernli for help with the trajectory interpretation. The Max Planck Society and the University of Mainz are acknowledged for funding the FACE-2004 measurement campaign. We thank the University of Frankfurt for access to the facilities at the Taunus Observatory for the duration of the FACE-2004 campaign. We thank D. Rosenfeld and Z. Levin for valuable comments on the manuscript.Attached Files
Supplemental Material - Dusek.SOM.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 51958
- DOI
- 10.1126/science.1125261
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20141119-104826616
- Max Planck Society
- University of Mainz
- Created
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2014-11-19Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-10Created from EPrint's last_modified field