Salt cloud particle size distributions

Table 1.7 Salt cloud particle size distribution...

The current version of GEM-AQ has five size-resolved aerosols types, viz. sea salt, sulphate, black carbon, organic carbon, and dust. The microphysical processes which describe formation and transformation of aerosols are calculated by a sectional aerosol module (Gong et al. 2003). The particle mass is distributed into 12 logarithmically spaced bins from 0.005 to 10.24 pm radius. This size distribution leads to an additional 60 advected tracers. The following aerosol processes are accounted for in the aerosol module nucleation, condensation, coagulation, sedimentation and dry deposition, in-cloud oxidation of SO2, in-cloud scavenging, and below-cloud scavenging by rain and snow. 

Measured size distributions of salt particles are monomodal and can by parameterized by the power law, with the index varying within 0.97-4.2 (average 2.3-2.6). The density of MSA particles is close to 2.35 — 2.40 g/m The spatial distribution of Cn MSA (r > 1 pm) for different regions of the world ocean can be illustrated by the following values in the Pacific Ocean Cn = (1.2-1.5) cm in the Indian Ocean (0.9-1.0) cm" near the Australian coastline 0.4 cm near the boundaries of the Antarctic ice sheet (1.8-2.1) cm" and near the Black Sea coastline (0.32-1.93) cm" [8]. The vertical distribution of Cn MSA has some specific features. A maximum of Cn distribution is often observed at altitudes of several hundred meters (apparently, because of a decrease in the Cn MSA near the water surface, resulting from the capture of salt particles by sea waves). At altitudes 2-3 km the value of Cn MSA constitutes < 1 % of the total Cn value, which is explained by the cloud filter . However, over land, near the coastline, at an altitude of 3 km, Cn MSA is somewhat higher than at the same level over the sea surface. This is connected with a more intensive turbulence over land. In general, sea-salt aerosol particles have to be chemically composed of dried sea water 88.7% chlorides, 70.8% sulfates, 0.3% carbonates, and 0.2% other salts. 

The first challenge concerns the involvement of multiple phases in wet deposition. Not only does one deal with the three usual phases (gas, aerosol, and aqueous), but the aqueous phase can be present in several forms (cloudwater, rain, snow, ice crystals, sleet, hail, etc.), all of which have a size resolution. To complicate matters even further, different processes operate inside a cloud, and others below it. Our goal will initially be to create a mathematical framework for this rather complicated picture. To simplify things as much as possible we consider a warm raining cloud without the complications of ice and snow. There are four media or phases present, namely, air, cloud droplets, aerosol particles, and rain droplets. A given species may exist in each of these phases for example, nitrate may exist in air as nitric acid vapor, dissolved in rain and cloud droplets as nitrate, and in various salts in the aerosol phase. Nonvolatile species like metals exist only in droplets and aerosols, while gases like HCHO exist only in the gas phase and the droplets. The size distribution of cloud droplets, rain droplets, and aerosols provides an additional complication. Let us initially neglect this feature. For a species i, one needs to describe mathematically its concentration in air C(,air, cloudwater C,[C 0ud, rainwater C .rain, and the aerosol phase Qpan- We assume that all concentrations are expressed as moles of i per volume of air (e.g., mol m 3 of air). These concentrations will be a function of the location (x,y,z) and time and can be described by the atmospheric diffusion equation... 

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