First long-term study of particle number size distributions and new particle formation events of regional aerosol in the North China Plain

Abstract. Atmospheric particle number size distributions (size range 0.003–10 μm) were measured between March 2008 and August 2009 at Shangdianzi (SDZ), a rural research station in the North China Plain. These measurements were made in an attempt to better characterize the tropospheric background aerosol in Northern China. The mean particle number concentrations of the total particle, as well as the nucleation, Aitken, accumulation and coarse mode were determined to be 1.2 ± 0.9 × 104, 3.6 ± 7.9 × 103, 4.4 ± 3.4 × 103, 3.5 ± 2.8 × 103 and 2 ± 3 cm−3, respectively. A general finding was that the particle number concentration was higher during spring compared to the other seasons. The air mass origin had an important effect on the particle number concentration and new particle formation events. Air masses from northwest (i.e. inner Asia) favored the new particle formation events, while air masses from southeast showed the highest particle mass concentration. Significant diurnal variations in particle number were observed, which could be linked to new particle formation events, i.e. gas-to-particle conversion. During particle formation events, the number concentration of the nucleation mode rose up to maximum value of 104 cm−3. New particle formation events were observed on 36% of the effective measurement days. The formation rate ranged from 0.7 to 72.7 cm−3 s−1, with a mean value of 8.0 cm−3 s−1. The value of the nucleation mode growth rate was in the range of 0.3–14.5 nm h−1, with a mean value of 4.3 nm h−1. It was an essential observation that on many occasions the nucleation mode was able to grow into the size of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) within a matter of several hours. Furthermore, the new particle formation was regularly followed by a measurable increase in particle mass concentration and extinction coefficient, indicative of a high abundance of condensable vapors in the atmosphere under study.

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First long-term study of particle number size distributions and new particle formation events of regional aerosol in the North China Plain

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions ◽

10.5194/acpd-10-25205-2010 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 10 (10) ◽

pp. 25205-25242 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

X. J. Shen ◽

J. Y. Sun ◽

Y. M. Zhang ◽

B. Wehner ◽

A. Nowak ◽

...

Keyword(s):

North China Plain ◽

North China ◽

Particle Number ◽

Particle Formation ◽

Mean Value ◽

Size Distributions ◽

New Particle Formation ◽

Air Masses ◽

Nucleation Mode ◽

The North

Abstract. Atmospheric particle number size distributions (size range 0.003–10 μm) were measured between March 2008 and August 2009 at Shangdianzi (SDZ), a rural research station in the North China Plain. These measurements were made in an attempt to better characterize the tropospheric background aerosol in Northern China, one of the currently more polluted regions of the globe. The mean particle number concentrations of the total aerosol, as well as the nucleation, Aitken and accumulation modes were determined to 1.2±0.9×104, 3.6±7.9×103, 4.4±3.4×103 and 3.5±2.8×103 cm−3, respectively. A general finding is that the particle number concentrations were higher during spring compared to the other seasons. The air mass origin had an important effect on the particle number concentration and new particle formation events. Air masses from northwest (i.e. inner Asia) showed the highest concentrations of nucleation mode particles, while southeasterly air masses showed the highest concentrations of accumulation mode particles. Significant diurnal variations in particle number were observed, which could be linked to new particle formation events, i.e. gas-to-particle conversion. During particle formation events, the number concentration of the nucleation mode rose up to maximum values of 104 cm−3. New particle formation events were observed on 36% of the measurement days. The formation rate ranged between 0.7 and 72.7 cm−3 s−1, with a mean value of 8.0 cm−3 s−1. The values of the nucleation mode growth rate ranged between 0.3 and 14.5 nm h−1, with a mean value of 4.3 nm h−1. It is an essential observation that on many occasions, the nucleation mode was able to grow into the size of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) within a matter of several hours. Furthermore, the new particle formation were usually followed by a measurable increase in total particle mass concentration and extinction coefficient, indicative of a high abundance of condensable vapors in the atmosphere under study.

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Characteristics of regional new particle formation in urban and regional background environments in the North China Plain

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ◽

10.5194/acp-13-12495-2013 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 13 (24) ◽

pp. 12495-12506 ◽

Cited By ~ 65

Author(s):

Z. B. Wang ◽

M. Hu ◽

J. Y. Sun ◽

Z. J. Wu ◽

D. L. Yue ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Urban Environment ◽

North China Plain ◽

North China ◽

Particle Formation ◽

Number Concentration ◽

Particle Nucleation ◽

New Particle Formation ◽

Aerosol Formation ◽

The North ◽

The North China Plain

Abstract. Long-term measurements of particle number size distributions were carried out both at an urban background site (Peking University, PKU) and a regional Global Atmospheric Watch station (Shangdianzi, SDZ) from March to November in 2008. In total, 52 new particle formation (NPF) events were observed simultaneously at both sites, indicating that this is a regional phenomenon in the North China Plain. On average, the mean condensation sink value before the nucleation events started was 0.025 s−1 in the urban environment, which was 1.6 times higher than that at regional site. However, higher particle formation and growth rates were observed at PKU (10.8 cm−3 s−1 and 5.2 nm h−1) compared with those at SDZ (4.9 cm−3 s−1 and 4.0 nm h−1). These results implied that precursors were much more abundant in the polluted urban environment. Different from the observations in cleaner environments, the background conditions of the observed particle homogeneous nucleation events in the North China Plain could be characterized as the co-existing of a stronger source of precursor gases and a higher condensational sink of pre-existing aerosol particles. Secondary aerosol formation following nucleation events results in an increase of particle mass concentration, particle light scattering coefficient, and cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) number concentration, with consequences on visibility, radiative effects, and air quality. Typical regional NPF events with significant particle nucleation rates and subsequent particle growth over a sufficiently long time period at both sites were chosen to investigate the influence of NPF on the number concentration of "potential" CCN. As a result, the NPF and the subsequent condensable growth increased the CCN number concentration in the North China Plain by factors in the range from 5.6 to 8.7. Moreover, the potential contribution of anthropogenic emissions to the CCN number concentration was more than 50%, to which more attention should be drawn in regional and global climate modeling, especially in the polluted urban areas.

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Nocturnal aerosol particle formation in the North China Plain

Lithuanian Journal of Physics ◽

10.3952/physics.v55i1.3057 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 55 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Simonas Kecorius ◽

Shenglan Zhang ◽

Zhibin Wang ◽

Johannes Größ ◽

Nan Ma ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Aerosol Particle ◽

North China Plain ◽

North China ◽

Particle Number ◽

Formation Rate ◽

Chemical Properties ◽

Particle Formation ◽

New Particle Formation ◽

The North ◽

The North China Plain

New particle formation is one of the major sources of atmospheric aerosol particles. Beside daytime nucleation, nocturnal new particle formation was also found in different regions around the world. Compared with daytime nucleation events, the understanding of nocturnal ones is still sparse. The variety of aerosol particle physico-chemical properties, including particle number size distribution, volatility and hygroscopicity were measured in the North China Plain during July–August 2013. During the observation period, rapid increase in ultrafine particle number concentration was attributed to new particle formation. The nocturnal new particle formation rate was 45 cm–3s–1, which is 1.25 times higher than an observed daytime value. Condensation sink was found to be 0.055 s–1.

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Characteristics of regional new particle formation in urban and regional background environments in the North China Plain

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions ◽

10.5194/acpd-13-20531-2013 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 13 (8) ◽

pp. 20531-20560 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Z. B. Wang ◽

M. Hu ◽

J. Y. Sun ◽

Z. J. Wu ◽

D. L. Yue ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Light Scattering ◽

Urban Environment ◽

North China Plain ◽

North China ◽

Particle Formation ◽

Number Concentration ◽

Scattering Coefficient ◽

New Particle Formation ◽

The North ◽

The North China Plain

Abstract. Long-term measurements of particle number size distributions were carried out in the North China Plain both at an urban background site (Peking University, PKU) and a regional Global Atmospheric Watch station (Shangdianzi, SDZ) from March to November in 2008. In total, 52 new particle formation events were observed simultaneously at both sites, indicating that this is a regional phenomenon in the North China Plain. On average, the mean condensation sink value before the nucleation event start was 0.025 s−1 in the urban environment, which was 1.6 times higher than that at regional site. However, higher particle formation and growth rates were observed at PKU (10.8 cm−3 s−1 an 5.2 nm h−1) compared with those at SDZ (4.9 cm−3 s−1 and 4.0 nm h−1). These results implied that more precursors are needed to participate in the nucleation process to observe the occurrence of new particle formation event in a more polluted urban environment. Different from the observations in clean environments, the background condition of the observed nucleation events in the North China Plain could be characterized as the co-existing of the higher source and sink. The condensational growth of newly formed particles results in an increase in the particle mass concentration, particle light scattering coefficient, and CCN number concentration, with consequences on climate effects and air quality. In 34 investigated new particle formation cases at both sites, a significant particle nucleation and subsequent growth over a sufficient long time period were observed and investigated in terms of the particle light scattering and the number concentration of "potential" CCN. The results revealed that the new particle formation increases the particle light scattering coefficient and CCN number concentration in the North China Plain by factors in the range of 6.3–7.6 and 5.6–8.7, respectively. Moreover, the potential contribution of anthropogenic emissions to the CCN number concentration is more than 50%, which should be drawn more attentions in the regional and global climate model, especially in the polluted urban areas.

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Referee review of acp-2016-23 Variation of CCN activity during new particle formation events in the North China Plain N. Ma, C. S. Zhao,

10.5194/acp-2016-23-rc1 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Anonymous

Keyword(s):

North China Plain ◽

North China ◽

Particle Formation ◽

New Particle Formation ◽

The North ◽

The North China Plain ◽

Ccn Activity

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Variation of size-segregated particle number concentrations in wintertime Beijing

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ◽

10.5194/acp-20-1201-2020 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 20 (2) ◽

pp. 1201-1216 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Ying Zhou ◽

Lubna Dada ◽

Yiliang Liu ◽

Yueyun Fu ◽

Juha Kangasluoma ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Particle Number ◽

Particle Formation ◽

Number Concentration ◽

Spatial And Temporal Variability ◽

Particle Number Concentration ◽

New Particle Formation ◽

Accumulation Mode ◽

Nucleation Mode ◽

Secondary Sources ◽

Haze Days

Abstract. The spatial and temporal variability of the number size distribution of aerosol particles is an indicator of the dynamic behavior of Beijing's atmospheric pollution cocktail. This variation reflects the strength of different primary and secondary sources, such as traffic and new particle formation, as well as the main processes affecting the particle population. In this paper, we report size-segregated particle number concentrations observed at a newly developed Beijing station during the winter of 2018. Our measurements covered particle number size distributions over the diameter range of 1.5 nm–1 µm (cluster mode, nucleation mode, Aitken mode and accumulation mode), thus being descriptive of a major fraction of the processes taking place in the atmosphere of Beijing. Here we focus on explaining the concentration variations in the observed particle modes, by relating them to the potential aerosol sources and sinks, and on understanding the connections between these modes. We considered haze days and new particle formation event days separately. Our results show that during the new particle formation (NPF) event days increases in cluster mode particle number concentration were observed, whereas during the haze days high concentrations of accumulation mode particles were present. There was a tight connection between the cluster mode and nucleation mode on both NPF event and haze days. In addition, we correlated the particle number concentrations in different modes with concentrations of trace gases and other parameters measured at our station. Our results show that the particle number concentration in all the modes correlated with NOx, which reflects the contribution of traffic to the whole submicron size range. We also estimated the contribution of ion-induced nucleation in Beijing, and we found this contribution to be negligible.

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Variation of CCN activity during new particle formation events in the North China Plain

10.5194/acp-2016-23 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

N. Ma ◽

C. S. Zhao ◽

J. C. Tao ◽

Z. J. Wu ◽

S. Kecorius ◽

...

Keyword(s):

North China Plain ◽

North China ◽

Critical Diameter ◽

Particle Formation ◽

New Particle Formation ◽

The North ◽

The North China Plain ◽

Ratio Curve ◽

Activation Ratio ◽

Ccn Activity

Abstract. The aim of this investigation was to obtain a better understanding of the variability of the cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) activity during new particle formation (NPF) events in an anthropogenically polluted atmosphere of the North China Plain (NCP). We investigated the size-resolved activation ratio as well as particle number size distribution, hygroscopicity and chemical composition during an intensive field experiment at a regional atmospheric observatory at Xianghe. Interestingly, two types of NPF events were found, in which the growth of the newly formed particles is dominated by either sulfate or organic matters. The particle CCN activity therefore significantly differs in those NPF events, indicating that it might be difficult to find a simple parameterization of particle CCN activity during NPF events over the NCP. For an accurate estimation of the potential CCN number concentration (NCCN) during NPF events, the variation of CCN activity has to be taken into account. Considering that a fixed activation ratio curve or critical diameter are usually used to calculate NCCN, the influence of the variation of particle CCN activity on the calculation of NCCN during NPF events was evaluated based on these two parameterizations. It was found that NCCN might be underestimated by up to 30 % if a fix activation ratio curve (representative of the region and season) is used in the calculation; and might be underestimated by up to 50 % if a fix critical diameter (representative of the region and season) is used. Therefore, we suggest not using a fixed critical diameter in the prediction of NCCN in NPF seasons. If real-time CCN activity data is not available, using a proper fixed activation ratio curve can be a compromising choice.

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Variation of CCN activity during new particle formation events in the North China Plain

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ◽

10.5194/acp-16-8593-2016 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 16 (13) ◽

pp. 8593-8607 ◽

Cited By ~ 30

Author(s):

Nan Ma ◽

Chunsheng Zhao ◽

Jiangchuan Tao ◽

Zhijun Wu ◽

Simonas Kecorius ◽

...

Keyword(s):

North China Plain ◽

North China ◽

Critical Diameter ◽

Particle Formation ◽

New Particle Formation ◽

The North ◽

The North China Plain ◽

Ratio Curve ◽

Activation Ratio ◽

Ccn Activity

Abstract. The aim of this investigation was to obtain a better understanding of the variability of the cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) activity during new particle formation (NPF) events in an anthropogenically polluted atmosphere of the North China Plain (NCP). We investigated the size-resolved activation ratio as well as particle number size distribution, hygroscopicity, and volatility during a 4-week intensive field experiment in summertime at a regional atmospheric observatory in Xianghe. Interestingly, based on a case study, two types of NPF events were found, in which the newly formed particles exhibited either a higher or a lower hygroscopicity. Therefore, the CCN activity of newly formed particles in different NPF events was largely different, indicating that a simple parameterization of particle CCN activity during NPF events over the NCP might lead to poor estimates of CCN number concentration (NCCN). For a more accurate estimation of the potential NCCN during NPF events, the variation of CCN activity has to be taken into account. Considering that a fixed activation ratio curve or critical diameter are usually used to calculate NCCN, the influence of the variation of particle CCN activity on the calculation of NCCN during NPF events was evaluated based on the two parameterizations. It was found that NCCN might be underestimated by up to 30 % if a single activation ratio curve (representative of the region and season) were to be used in the calculation; and might be underestimated by up to 50 % if a fixed critical diameter (representative of the region and season) were used. Therefore, we suggest not using a fixed critical diameter in the prediction of NCCN in NPF. If real-time CCN activity data are not available, using a proper fixed activation ratio curve can be an alternative but compromised choice.

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Characteristics of Aerosol Size Distributions and New Particle Formation Events at Delhi: An Urban Location in the Indo-Gangetic Plains

Frontiers in Earth Science ◽

10.3389/feart.2021.750111 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 ◽

Author(s):

Sandhya Jose ◽

Amit Kumar Mishra ◽

Neelesh K. Lodhi ◽

Sudhir Kumar Sharma ◽

Sachchidanand Singh

Keyword(s):

Particle Size ◽

Particle Size Distribution ◽

Size Distribution ◽

Aerosol Particle ◽

Particle Number ◽

Particle Formation ◽

Number Concentration ◽

New Particle Formation ◽

Nucleation Mode ◽

Aerosol Particle Size

Accurate information about aerosol particle size distribution and its variation under different meteorological conditions are essential for reducing uncertainties related to aerosol-cloud-climate interaction processes. New particle formation (NPF) and the coagulation significantly affect the aerosol size distribution. Here we study the monthly and seasonal variability of aerosol particle size distribution at Delhi from December 2011 to January 2013. Analysis of aerosol particle size distribution using WRAS-GRIMM reveals that aerosol particle number concentration is highest during the post monsoon season owing to the effect of transported crop residue and biomass burning aerosols. Diurnal variations in number concentration show a bimodal pattern with two Aitken mode peaks in all the seasons. Monthly volume size distribution also shows bi-modal distribution with distinct coarse and fine modes. NPF events are observed less frequently in Delhi. Out of 222 days of WRAS data, only 17 NPF events have been observed, with higher NPF frequency during summer season. Growth rate of the nucleation mode of NPF events vary in the range 1.88–21.66 nm/h with a mean value of ∼8.45 ± 5.73 nm/h. It is found that during NPF events the Aitken and nucleation mode particles contribute more to the number concentration. Simultaneous measurement of UV flux and particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5) have also been done along with particle number size distribution measurement to understand the possible mechanisms for NPF events over the study location.

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