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Sources and Atmospheric Processing of Black Carbon-Containing Particles at a Rural Site Southeast of London, January-February, 2012

 
Poster PDF

Authors

Richard L. Coulter — Argonne National Laboratory
Andrew Freedman — Aerodyne Research, Inc.
Manvendra K. Dubey — Los Alamos National Laboratory
Timothy B Onasch — Aerodyne Research, Inc.
John T Jayne — Aerodyne Research, Inc.
Leah R Williams — Aerodyne Research Inc
Douglas R Worsnop — Aerodyne Research, Inc.
Allison C Aiken — Los Alamos National Laboratory
Walter Berkett Knighton — Montana State University
Paola Massoli — Aerodyne Research, Inc.
Kyle Gorkowski — Los Alamos National Laboratory
Scott C Herndon — Aerodyne Research, Inc.
Joel Thornton — University of Washington
Nga Lee Ng — Georgia Institute of Technology
Felipe Lopez-Hilfiker — University of Washington
William Brooks — Aerodyne Research, Inc.
Jonathan P Franklin — Aerodyne Research, Inc.
Lu Xu — Georgia Institute of Technology
Puneet Chhabra — Aerodyne Research, Inc.
Mark Stuart Zahniser — Aerodyne Research, Inc.
Harald Stark — Aerodyne Research, Inc.
Claudia Mohr — University of Washington
Shang Liu — University of Colorado, Boulder

Category

Absorbing Aerosol

Description

We deployed a suite of instruments at a rural site approximately 45 km southeast of London in Detling, UK during January-February, 2012, as part of the Clean Air for London (CleafLo) campaign. The focus of the wintertime deployment was on regional air quality and on solid fuel burning for home heating. Measurements included aerosol chemistry and optical properties, gas-phase tracers, secondary organic aerosol (SOA) precursors, and radiative and meteorological conditions. This presentation will focus on the black carbon containing particles measured at Detling. The soot particle aerosol mass spectrometer (SP-AMS) instrument made in situ measurements of the chemical composition and size distributions of black carbon containing particles, including both the black carbon component and any coatings. The mass spectra were analysed with positive matrix factorization (PMF) yielding three main factors. The first factor has dominant peaks at m/z 60 and 72, indicative of solid fuel burning. The second factor has a mass spectrum suggesting hydrocarbons associated with fresh vehicle emissions. Both of these factors were split into two sub-factors, one with most of the black carbon and a small amount of associated non-refractory mass and the second with a small amount of black carbon and a large amount of non-refractory material. These sub-factors may be linked to different sources or to different atmospheric processing of the particles. The third factor has a mass spectrum associated with oxygenated organics and more aged aerosol particles. The PMF factors are linked to sources using other gas-phase and particle measurements, dispersion model back trajectories and local wind measurements. We will present case studies of different particle sources, including a comparison of chemistry and optical properties, as well as comparisons with urban London particulate measurements.