Abstract. We study the combined effects of land surface conditions, atmospheric boundary layer dynamics and chemistry on the diurnal evolution of biogenic secondary organic aerosol in the atmospheric boundary layer, using a model that contains the essentials of all these components. First, we evaluate the model for a case study in Hyytiälä, Finland, and find that it is able to well reproduce the observed dynamics and gas-phase chemistry. We show that the exchange of organic aerosol between the free troposphere and the boundary layer (entrainment) must be taken into account in order to explain the observed diurnal cycle in organic aerosol (OA) concentration. An examination of the budgets of organic aerosol and terpene concentration shows that the former is dominated by entrainment, while the latter is mainly driven by emission and chemical transformation. We systematically examine the role of the land surface, which governs both the surface energy balance partitioning and terpene-emissions, and the large-scale atmospheric process of vertical subsidence. Entrainment is especially important for the dilution of organic aerosol concentrations under conditions of dry soils and low terpene-emissions. Subsidence suppresses boundary layer growth while enhancing entrainment. Therefore it influences the relationship between organic aerosol and terpene-concentrations. Our findings indicate that the diurnal evolution of SOA in the boundary layer is the result of coupled effects of the land surface, dynamics of the atmospheric boundary layer, chemistry, and free troposphere conditions. This has potentially some consequences for the design of both field campaigns and large-scale modeling studies.
The study of the unstably-stratified marine atmospheric boundary layer by direct numerical simulation