EGU21-13816, updated on 22 Feb 2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-13816
EGU General Assembly 2021
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Dust-dominated coarse particles as a medium for rapid secondary organic and inorganic aerosol formation in highly polluted air

Ye Kuang2,3, Wanyun Xu1, Linlin Liang1, Yao He4, Hongbin Cheng1, Yuxuan Bian5, Jiangchuan Tao2,3, Gen Zhang1, Pusheng Zhao6, Nan Ma2,3, Huarong Zhao7, Guangsheng Zhou1, Hang Su8, Yafang Cheng8, Xiaobin Xu1, Min Shao2,3, and Yele Sun4
Ye Kuang et al.
  • 1State Key Laboratory of Severe Weather, Key Laboratory for Atmospheric Chemistry, Institute of Atmospheric Composition, Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing 100081, China
  • 2Jinan University, Institute for Environmental and Climate Research, China (kuangye@jnu.edu.cn)
  • 3Guangdong-Hongkong-Macau Joint Laboratory of Collaborative Innovation for Environmental Quality, Guangzhou, China
  • 4State Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Boundary Layer Physics and Atmospheric Chemistry, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China
  • 5State Key Laboratory of Severe Weather, Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing, 100081, China
  • 6Institute of Urban Meteorology, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing 100089, China
  • 7State Key Laboratory of Severe Weather, Institute of Agricultural Meteorology, Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing, 100081, China
  • 8Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz 55128, Germany

Secondary aerosol (SA) frequently drives severe haze formation on the North China Plain. However, previous studies mostly focused on submicron SA formation, thus our understanding of SA formation on supermicron particles remains poor. In this study, PM2.5 chemical composition and PM10 number size distribution measurements revealed that the SA formation occurred in very distinct size ranges. In particular, SA formation on dust-dominated supermicron particles was surprisingly high and increased with relative humidity (RH). SA formed on supermicron aerosols reached comparable levels with that on submicron particles during evolutionary stages of haze episodes. These results suggested that dust particles served as a medium for rapid secondary organic and inorganic aerosol formation under favorable photochemical and RH conditions in a highly polluted environment. Further analysis indicated that SA formation pathways differed among distinct size ranges. Overall, our study highlights the importance of dust in SA formation during non-dust storm periods and the urgent need to perform size-resolved aerosol chemical and physical property measurements in future SA formation investigations that are extended to the coarse mode because the large amount of SA formed thereon might have significant impacts on ice nucleation, radiative forcing, and human health.

How to cite: Kuang, Y., Xu, W., Liang, L., He, Y., Cheng, H., Bian, Y., Tao, J., Zhang, G., Zhao, P., Ma, N., Zhao, H., Zhou, G., Su, H., Cheng, Y., Xu, X., Shao, M., and Sun, Y.: Dust-dominated coarse particles as a medium for rapid secondary organic and inorganic aerosol formation in highly polluted air, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-13816, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-13816, 2021.

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