Strong light scattering of highly oxygenated organic aerosols impacts significantly on visibility degradation

    Secondary organic aerosols (SOAs) account for a large fraction of atmospheric aerosol mass and play significant roles in visibility impairment by scattering solar radiation. However, comprehensive evaluations of SOA scattering abilities under ambient relative humidity (RH) conditions on the basis of field measurements are still lacking due to the difficulty of simultaneously direct quantifications of SOA scattering efficiency in dry state and SOA water uptake abilities. In this study, field measurements of aerosol chemical and physical properties were conducted in winter in Guangzhou using a humidified nephelometer system and aerosol chemical speciation monitor. A modified multilinear regression model was proposed to retrieve dry-state mass scattering efficiencies (MSE, defined as scattering coefficient per unit aerosol mass) of aerosol components. The more oxidized oxygenated organic aerosol (MOOA) with O/C ratio of 1.17 was identified as the most efficient light scattering aerosol component. On average, 34% mass contribution of MOOA to total submicron organic aerosol mass contributed 51% of dry-state organic aerosol scattering. The overall organic aerosol hygroscopicity parameter κ_OA was quantified directly through hygroscopicity closure, and hygroscopicity parameters of SOA components were further retrieved using multilinear regression model by assuming hydrophobic properties of primary organic aerosols. The highest water uptake ability of MOOA among organic aerosol factors was revealed with κ_MOOA reaching 0.23, thus further enhancing the fractional contribution of MOOA in ambient organic aerosol scattering. In particular, the scattering abilities of MOOA was found to be even higher than those of ammonium nitrate under RH of <70% which was identified as the most efficient inorganic scattering aerosol component, demonstrating that MOOA had the strongest scattering abilities in ambient air (average RH of 57%) during winter in Guangzhou. During the observation period, secondary aerosols contributed dominantly to visibility degradation (~70%) with substantial contributions from MOOA (16% on average), demonstrating significant impacts of MOOA on visibility degradations. The findings of this study demonstrate that more attention needs to be paid to SOA property changes in future visibility improvement investigations. Also, more comprehensive studies on MOOA physical properties and chemical formation are needed to better parameterize its radiative effects in models and implement targeted control strategies on MOOA precursors for visibility improvement.