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Atmosphere
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Atmospheric Carbonaceous Aerosols
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Atmospheric Carbonaceous Aerosols

A special issue of Atmosphere (ISSN 2073-4433). This special issue belongs to the section "Aerosols".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 April 2020) | Viewed by 17145

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Petri Tiitta

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Environmental and Biological Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, FI-70210 Kuopio, Finland
Interests: atmospheric aerosols; AMS; combustion aerosols; atmospheric pollution
Dr. Liqing Hao

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Applied Physics, University of Eastern Finland, FI-70210 Kuopio, Finland
Interests: secondary organic aerosol; aerosol–cloud interaction; aerosol mass spectrometer

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Carbonaceous aerosols have increasingly drawn scientific attention for their significant adverse climate and health effects. The carbonaceous aerosol consists of organics and elemental carbon, which is generally referred to as black carbon (BC/rBC/EC). BC absorbs solar radiation causing positive climate radiative forcing and also influences clouds. Primary carbonaceous aerosols are emitted directly from combustion or industrial processes. Secondary organic aerosols (SOA), part of carbonaceous aerosols, are formed via nucleation, condensation, and the heterogeneous reactions of organic compounds. SOA lead to climate impacts through the scattering and absorption of sunlight and their participation in cloud formation. Knowledge of the impacts of carbonaceous aerosols on climate change and health is incomplete. A comprehensive and predictive understanding of the impacts of carbonaceous aerosols on regional and global scales requires the quantification of their chemical composition and associated physical and optical properties. Furthermore, understanding the dynamics and transformation of carbonaceous particles is essential and needs wide-ranging research. In this Special Issue, we invite submissions of research papers within the topic of carbonaceous particles in the atmosphere, addressing the following perspectives: 

•         Black/elemental carbon
•         SOA formation and aging
•         Chemical composition and carbon nanostructure
•         Brown carbon and refractory organics
•         Source apportionment and emission inventories
•        Air quality and modeling studies

Dr. Petri Tiitta
Dr. Liqing Hao
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • Black/elemental carbon
  • Organic and brown carbon
  • Chemical composition
  • Physical and optical properties
  • Transformation/aging

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 9620 KiB  
Article
Exposure and Respiratory Tract Deposition Dose of Equivalent Black Carbon in High Altitudes
by Leizel Madueño, Simonas Kecorius, Marcos Andrade and Alfred Wiedensohler
Atmosphere 2020, 11(6), 598; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos11060598 - 5 Jun 2020
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3696
Abstract
The traffic microenvironment accounts for a significant fraction of the total daily dose of inhaled air pollutants. The adverse effects of air pollution may be intensified in high altitudes (HA) due to increased minute ventilation (MV), which may result in higher deposition doses [...] Read more.
The traffic microenvironment accounts for a significant fraction of the total daily dose of inhaled air pollutants. The adverse effects of air pollution may be intensified in high altitudes (HA) due to increased minute ventilation (MV), which may result in higher deposition doses compared to that at sea level. Despite this, air quality studies in regions with combined high pollution levels and enhanced inhalation are limited. The main goals of this study are to investigate how the choice of travel mode (walking, microbus, and cable car ride) determines (i) the personal exposure to equivalent black carbon (eBC) and (ii) the corresponding potential respiratory deposited dose (RDD) in HA. For this investigation, we chose La Paz and El Alto in Bolivia as HA representative cities. The highest eBC exposure occurred in microbus commutes (13 μg m−3), while the highest RDD per trip was recorded while walking (6.3 μg) due to increased MV. On the other hand, the lowest eBC exposure and RDD were observed in cable car commute. Compared with similar studies done at sea level, our results revealed that a HA city should reduce exposure by 1.4 to 1.8-fold to achieve similar RDD at sea level, implying that HA cities require doubly aggressive and stringent road emission policies compared to those at sea level. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Atmospheric Carbonaceous Aerosols)
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18 pages, 12506 KiB  
Article
Source Apportionment of PM2.5 in Guangzhou Based on an Approach of Combining Positive Matrix Factorization with the Bayesian Mixing Model and Radiocarbon
by Tingting Li, Jun Li, Hongxing Jiang, Duohong Chen, Zheng Zong, Chongguo Tian and Gan Zhang
Atmosphere 2020, 11(5), 512; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos11050512 - 16 May 2020
Cited by 17 | Viewed by 3351
Abstract
To accurately apportion the sources of aerosols, a combined method of positive matrix factorization (PMF) and the Bayesian mixing model was applied in this study. The PMF model was conducted to identify the sources of PM2.5 in Guangzhou. The secondary inorganic aerosol [...] Read more.
To accurately apportion the sources of aerosols, a combined method of positive matrix factorization (PMF) and the Bayesian mixing model was applied in this study. The PMF model was conducted to identify the sources of PM2.5 in Guangzhou. The secondary inorganic aerosol source was one of the seven main sources in Guangzhou. Based on stable isotopes of oxygen and nitrogen (δ15N-NO3− and δ18O-NO3−), the Bayesian mixing model was performed to apportion the source of NO3− to coal combustion, traffic emission and biogenic source. Then the secondary aerosol source was subdivided into three sources according to the discrepancy in source apportionment of NO3− between PMF and Bayesian mixing model results. After secondary aerosol assignment, the six main sources of PM2.5 were traffic emission (30.6%), biomass burning (23.1%), coal combustion (17.7%), ship emission (14.0%), biomass boiler (9.9%) and industrial emission (4.7%). To assess the source apportionment results, fossil/non-fossil source contributions to organic carbon (OC) and element carbon (EC) inferred from 14C measurements were compared with the corresponding results in the PMF model. The results showed that source distributions of EC matched well between those two methods, indicating that the PMF model captured the primary sources well. Probably because of the lack of organic molecular markers to identify the biogenic source of OC, the non-fossil source contribution to OC in PMF results was obviously lower than 14C results. Thus, an indicative organic molecular tracer should be used to identify the biogenic source when accurately apportioning the sources of aerosols, especially in the region with high plant coverage or intense biomass burning. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Atmospheric Carbonaceous Aerosols)
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12 pages, 1891 KiB  
Article
Can the Aerosol Absorption Ångström Exponent Represent Aerosol Color in the Atmosphere: A Numerical Study
by Dapeng Zhao, Yan Yin, Chao Liu, Chunsong Lu and Xiaofeng Xu
Atmosphere 2020, 11(2), 187; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos11020187 - 11 Feb 2020
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 3834
Abstract
The aerosol absorption Ångström exponent (AAE) is widely used to indicate aerosol absorption spectrum variations and is an important parameter for characterizing aerosol optical absorption properties. This study discusses the relationship between aerosol AAEs and their colors numerically. By combining light scattering simulations, [...] Read more.
The aerosol absorption Ångström exponent (AAE) is widely used to indicate aerosol absorption spectrum variations and is an important parameter for characterizing aerosol optical absorption properties. This study discusses the relationship between aerosol AAEs and their colors numerically. By combining light scattering simulations, a two-stream radiative transfer model, and an RGB (Red, Green, and Blue) color model, aerosol colors that can be sensed by human eyes are numerically generated with both the solar spectrum and human eye response taken into account. Our results indicate that the responses of human eyes to visible light might be more significant than the incident spectrum in the simulation of aerosol color in the atmosphere. Using the improved numerical simulation algorithm, we obtain the color change of absorption aerosols with different AAEs. When the AAE value is small, the color of the aerosol is generally black and gray. When the AAE value increases to approximately 2 and the difference between the light transmittances at wavelengths of 400 nm and 730 nm is greater than 0.2, the aerosol will appear brown or yellow. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Atmospheric Carbonaceous Aerosols)
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24 pages, 2551 KiB  
Article
Carbonaceous Aerosols in Contrasting Atmospheric Environments in Greek Cities: Evaluation of the EC-tracer Methods for Secondary Organic Carbon Estimation
by Dimitris G. Kaskaoutis, Georgios Grivas, Christina Theodosi, Maria Tsagkaraki, Despina Paraskevopoulou, Iasonas Stavroulas, Eleni Liakakou, Antonis Gkikas, Nikolaos Hatzianastassiou, Cheng Wu, Evangelos Gerasopoulos and Nikolaos Mihalopoulos
Atmosphere 2020, 11(2), 161; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos11020161 - 4 Feb 2020
Cited by 58 | Viewed by 5725
Abstract
This study examines the carbonaceous-aerosol characteristics at three contrasting urban environments in Greece (Ioannina, Athens, and Heraklion), on the basis of 12 h sampling during winter (January to February 2013), aiming to explore the inter-site differences in atmospheric composition and carbonaceous-aerosol characteristics and [...] Read more.
This study examines the carbonaceous-aerosol characteristics at three contrasting urban environments in Greece (Ioannina, Athens, and Heraklion), on the basis of 12 h sampling during winter (January to February 2013), aiming to explore the inter-site differences in atmospheric composition and carbonaceous-aerosol characteristics and sources. The winter-average organic carbon (OC) and elemental carbon (EC) concentrations in Ioannina were found to be 28.50 and 4.33 µg m−3, respectively, much higher than those in Heraklion (3.86 µg m−3 for OC and 2.29 µg m−3 for EC) and Athens (7.63 µg m−3 for OC and 2.44 µg m−3 for EC). The winter OC/EC ratio in Ioannina (6.53) was found to be almost three times that in Heraklion (2.03), indicating a larger impact of wood combustion, especially during the night, whereas in Heraklion, emissions from biomass burning were found to be less intense. Estimations of primary and secondary organic carbon (POC and SOC) using the EC-tracer method, and specifically its minimum R-squared (MRS) variant, revealed large differences between the sites, with a prevalence of POC (67–80%) in Ioannina and Athens and with a larger SOC fraction (53%) in Heraklion. SOC estimates were also obtained using the 5% and 25% percentiles of the OC/EC data to determine the (OC/EC)pri, leading to results contrasting to the MRS approach in Ioannina (70–74% for SOC). Although the MRS method provides generally more robust results, it may significantly underestimate SOC levels in environments highly burdened by biomass burning, as the fast-oxidized semi-volatile OC associated with combustion sources is classified in POC. Further analysis in Athens revealed that the difference in SOC estimates between the 5% percentile and MRS methods coincided with the semi-volatile oxygenated organic aerosol as quantified by aerosol mass spectrometry. Finally, the OC/Kbb+ ratio was used as tracer for decomposition of the POC into fossil-fuel and biomass-burning components, indicating the prevalence of biomass-burning POC, especially in Ioannina (77%). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Atmospheric Carbonaceous Aerosols)
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