EGU25-10952, updated on 15 Mar 2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-10952
EGU General Assembly 2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Aerosol Number Concentration and Cloud Condensation Nuclei Variability During Warm and Moist Intrusions into the Arctic
Berkay Dönmez1,2, Jakob Boyd Pernov3, Eija Asmi4, Tak Chan5, Radovan Krejci6, Andreas Massling7, Sangeeta Sharma8, Henrik Skov7, Peter Tunved6, Alfred Wiedensohler9, Kay Weinhold9, Athanasios Nenes2,10, and Julia Schmale1
Berkay Dönmez et al.
  • 1Extreme Environments Research Laboratory, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Sion, Switzerland (berkay.donmez@epfl.ch)
  • 2Laboratory of Atmospheric Processes and their Impacts, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
  • 3School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia
  • 4Finnish Meteorological Institute, Helsinki, Finland
  • 5Environment and Climate Change Canada, Science and Technology Branch, Toronto, Canada
  • 6Department of Environmental Science & Bolin Centre for Climate Research, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
  • 7Department of Environmental Science, Aarhus University, Roskilde, Denmark
  • 8Climate Research Division, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Climate Chemistry Measurements Research, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  • 9Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research, Leipzig, Germany
  • 10Center for the Study of Air Quality and Climate Change, Institute of Chemical Engineering Sciences, Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas, Patras, Greece

Recent case studies highlight that warm and moist air intrusion events are significant sources of aerosol particles in the Arctic, influencing cloud properties and thus the resulting radiative forcing in the region. However, the contribution of these short-lived events to different aerosol size modes, cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), and droplet number concentrations remains unconstrained. Here, we investigate the multi-annual aspects of intrusion impacts on aerosol properties using data on aerosol number size distributions, CCN, total particle number concentrations, and optical properties from multiple Arctic stations, including Alert, Tiksi, Utqiaġvik, Villum, and Zeppelin, covering the period 2010-2020.

Preliminary results suggest that particle concentrations change significantly during intrusion episodes, with variations across seasons and stations. For instance, contrary to previous studies, number size distribution data indicate a distinct decrease in accumulation mode concentrations during wintertime intrusion episodes relative to non-intrusion periods at several Arctic stations. In summer, this pattern reverses, although not uniformly across stations. Additionally, at Zeppelin, the average of the yearly mean CCN concentrations during intrusions is increased by 13% compared to non-intrusion periods, with some years showing increases exceeding 40%.

We explore the potential drivers of these observed number size distribution patterns and derive potential source contribution function and removal mechanisms along the trajectories, employing the Lagrangian analysis tool LAGRANTO.

How to cite: Dönmez, B., Pernov, J. B., Asmi, E., Chan, T., Krejci, R., Massling, A., Sharma, S., Skov, H., Tunved, P., Wiedensohler, A., Weinhold, K., Nenes, A., and Schmale, J.: Aerosol Number Concentration and Cloud Condensation Nuclei Variability During Warm and Moist Intrusions into the Arctic, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-10952, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-10952, 2025.