Air quality impact and physicochemical aging of biomass burning aerosols during the 2007 San Diego wildfires.

Intense wildfires burning >360000 acres in San Diego during October, 2007 provided a unique opportunity to study the impact of wildfires on local air quality and biomass burning aerosol (BBA) aging. The size-resolved mixing state of individual particles was measured in real-time with an aerosol time-of-flight mass spectrometer (ATOFMS) for 10 days after the fires commenced. Particle concentrations were high county-wide due to the wildfires; 84% of 120-400 nm particles by number were identified as BBA, with particles <400 nm contributing to mass concentrations dangerous to public health, up to 148 µg/m(3). Evidence of potassium salts heterogeneously reacting with inorganic acids was observed with continuous high temporal resolution for the first time. Ten distinct chemical types shown as BBA factors were identified through positive matrix factorization coupled to single particle analysis, including particles comprised of potassium chloride and organic nitrogen during the beginning of the wildfires, ammonium nitrate and amines after an increase of relative humidity, and sulfate dominated when the air mass back trajectories passed through the Los Angeles port region. Understanding BBA aging processes and quantifying the size-resolved mass and number concentrations are important in determining the overall impact of wildfires on air quality, health, and climate.

Approach for measuring the chemistry of individual particles in the size range critical for cloud formation.

Aerosol particles, especially those ranging from 50 to 200 nm, strongly impact climate by serving as nuclei upon which water condenses and cloud droplets form. However, the small number of analytical methods capable of measuring the composition of particles in this size range, particularly at the individual particle level, has limited our knowledge of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) composition and hence our understanding of aerosols effect on climate. To obtain more insight into particles in this size range, we developed a method which couples a growth tube (GT) to an ultrafine aerosol time-of-flight mass spectrometer (UF-ATOFMS), a combination that allows in situ measurements of the composition of individual particles as small as 38 nm. The growth tube uses water to grow particles to larger sizes so they can be optically detected by the UF-ATOFMS, extending the size range to below 100 nm with no discernible changes in particle composition. To gain further insight into the temporal variability of aerosol chemistry and sources, the GT-UF-ATOFMS was used for online continuous measurements over a period of 3 days.

Timescale for hygroscopic conversion of calcite mineral particles through heterogeneous reaction with nitric acid.

Atmospheric heterogeneous reactions can potentially change the hygroscopicity of atmospheric aerosols as they undergo chemical aging processes in the atmosphere. A particle's hygroscopicity influences its cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) properties with potential impacts on cloud formation and climate. In this study, size-selected calcite mineral particles were reacted with controlled amounts of nitric acid vapour over a wide range of relative humidities in an aerosol flow tube to study the conversion of insoluble and thus apparently non-hygroscopic calcium carbonate into soluble and hygroscopic calcium nitrate. The rate of hygroscopic change particles undergo during a heterogeneous reaction is derived from experimental measurements for the first time. The chemistry of the reacted particles was determined using an ultrafine aerosol time-of-flight mass spectrometer (UF-ATOFMS) while the particles' hygroscopicity was determined through measuring CCN activation curves fit to a single parameter of hygroscopicity, kappa. The reaction is rapid, corresponding to atmospheric timescales of hours. At low to moderate HNO3 exposures, the increase in the hygroscopicity of the particles is a linear function of the HNO3(g) exposure. The experimentally observed conversion rate was used to constrain a simple but accurate kinetic model. This model predicts that calcite particles will be rapidly converted into hygroscopic particles (kappa>0.1) within 4 h for low HNO3 mixing ratios (10 pptv) and in less than 3 min for 1000 pptv HNO3. This suggests that the hygroscopic conversion of the calcite component of atmospheric mineral dust aerosol will be controlled by the availability of nitric acid and similar reactants, and not by the atmospheric residence time.