Published in
National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 37(115), p. 9122-9127, 2018
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Rapid growth of organic aerosol nanoparticles over a wide tropospheric temperature range
,
Lukas Fischer ,
Alexander L. Vogel,
Martin Heinritzi,
Meredith Schervish ,
Mario Simon,
Andrea C. Wagner,
Lubna Dada,
Lauri Reino Antero Ahonen,
Antonio Amorim,
Andrea Baccarini ,
Paulus S. Bauer,
Bernhard Baumgartner,
Anton Bergen,
Federico Bianchi
and other authors.
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Abstract
Significance Aerosol particles can form and grow by gas-to-particle conversion and eventually act as seeds for cloud droplets, influencing global climate. Volatile organic compounds emitted from plants are oxidized in the atmosphere, and the resulting products drive particle growth. We measure particle growth by oxidized biogenic vapors with a well-controlled laboratory setup over a wide range of tropospheric temperatures. While higher temperatures lead to increased reaction rates and concentrations of highly oxidized molecules, lower temperatures allow additional, but less oxidized, species to condense. We measure rapid growth over the full temperature range of our study, indicating that organics play an important role in aerosol growth throughout the troposphere. Our finding will help to sharpen the predictions of global aerosol models.