Intensification of ice nucleation observed in ocean ship emissions.

Shipping contributes primary and secondary emission products to the atmospheric aerosol burden that have implications for climate, clouds, and air quality from regional to global scales. In this study we exam the potential impact of ship emissions with regards to ice nucleating particles. Particles that nucleate ice are known to directly affect precipitation and cloud microphysical properties. We have collected and analyzed particles for their ice nucleating capacity from a shipping channel outside a large Scandinavia port. We observe that ship plumes amplify the background levels of ice nucleating particles and discuss the larger scale implications. The measured ice nucleating particles suggest that the observed amplification is most likely important in regions with low levels of background particles. The Arctic, which as the sea ice pack declines is opening to transit and natural resource exploration and exploitation at an ever increasing rate, is highlighted as such a region.

Hot water from cold. The dissociative recombination of water cluster ions.

Dissociative recombination of the Zundel cation D(5)O(2)(+) almost exclusively produces D + 2 D(2)O with a maximum kinetic energy release of 5.1 eV. An imaging technique is used to investigate the distribution of the available reaction energy among these products. Analysis shows that as much as 4 eV can be stored internally by the molecular fragments, with a preference for producing highly excited molecular fragments, and that the deuteron shows a nonrandom distribution of kinetic energies. A possible mechanism and the implications for these observations are addressed.

Dissociative recombination of water cluster ions with free electrons: cross sections and branching ratios.

Dissociative recombination (DR) of water cluster ions H(+)(H(2)O)(n) (n=4-6) with free electrons has been studied at the heavy-ion storage ring CRYRING (Manne Siegbahn Laboratory, Stockholm University). For the first time, branching ratios have been determined for the dominating product channels and absolute DR cross sections have been measured in the energy range from 0.001 to 0.7 eV. Dissociative recombination is concluded to result in extensive fragmentation for all three cluster ions, and a maximum number of heavy oxygen-containing fragments is produced with a probability close to unity. The branching ratio results agree with earlier DR studies of smaller water cluster ions where the channel nH(2)O+H has been observed to dominate and where energy transfer to internal degrees of freedom has been concluded to be highly efficient. The absolute DR cross sections for H(+)(H(2)O)(n) (n=4-6) decrease monotonically with increasing energy with an energy dependence close to E(-1) in the lower part of the energy range and a faster falloff at higher energies, in agreement with the behavior of other studied heavy ions. The cross section data have been used to calculate DR rate coefficients in the temperature range of 10-2000 K. The results from storage ring experiments with water cluster ions are concluded to partly confirm the earlier results from afterglow experiments. The DR rate coefficients for H(+)(H(2)O)(n) (n=1-6) are in general somewhat lower than reported from afterglow experiments. The rate coefficient tends to increase with increasing cluster size, but not in the monotonic way that has been reported from afterglow experiments. The needs for further experimental studies and for theoretical models that can be used to predict the DR rate of polyatomic ions are discussed.

Dissociative recombination of H+(H2O)3 and D+(D2O)3 water cluster ions with electrons: cross sections and branching ratios.

Dissociative recombination (DR) of the water cluster ions H(+)(H(2)O)(3) and D(+)(D(2)O)(3) with electrons has been studied at the heavy-ion storage ring CRYRING (Manne Siegbahn Laboratory, Stockholm University). For the first time, absolute DR cross sections have been measured for H(+)(H(2)O)(3) in the energy range of 0.001-0.8 eV, and relative cross sections have been measured for D(+)(D(2)O)(3) in the energy range of 0.001-1.0 eV. The DR cross sections for H(+)(H(2)O)(3) are larger than previously observed for H(+)(H(2)O)(n) (n=1,2), which is in agreement with the previously observed trend indicating that the DR rate coefficient increases with size of the water cluster ion. Branching ratios have been determined for the dominating product channels. Dissociative recombination of H(+)(H(2)O)(3) mainly results in the formation of 3H(2)O+H (probability of 0.95+/-0.05) and with a possible minor channel resulting in 2H(2)O+OH+H(2) (0.05+/-0.05). The dominating channels for DR of D(+)(D(2)O)(3) are 3D(2)O+D (0.88+/-0.03) and 2D(2)O+OD+D(2) (0.09+/-0.02). The branching ratios are comparable to earlier DR results for H(+)(H(2)O)(2) and D(+)(D(2)O)(2), which gave 2X(2)O+X (X=H,D) with a probability of over 0.9.

Dissociative recombination of ammonia clusters studied by storage ring experiments.

Dissociative recombination of ammonia cluster ions with free electrons has been studied at the heavy-ion storage ring CRYRING (Manne Siegbahn Laboratory, Stockholm University). The absolute cross sections for dissociative recombination of H+(NH3)2, H+(NH3)3, D+(ND3)2, and D+(ND3)3 in the collision energy range of 0.001-27 eV are reported, and thermal rate coefficients for the temperature interval from 10 to 1000 K are calculated from the experimental data and compared with earlier results. The fragmentation patterns for the two ions H+(NH3)2 and D+(ND3)2 show no clear isotope effect. Dissociative recombination of X+(NX3)2 (X=H or D) is dominated by the product channels 2NX3+X [0.95+/-0.02 for H+(NH3)2 and 1.00+/-0.02 for D+(ND3)2]. Dissociative recombination of D+(ND3)3 is dominated by the channels yielding three N-containing fragments (0.95+/-0.05).

Dissociative recombination of NH4+ and ND4+ ions: storage ring experiments and ab initio molecular dynamics.

The dissociative recombination (DR) process of NH4+ and ND4+ molecular ions with free electrons has been studied at the heavy-ion storage ring CRYRING (Manne Siegbahn Laboratory, Stockholm University). The absolute cross sections for DR of NH4+ and ND4+ in the collision energy range 0.001-1 eV are reported, and thermal rate coefficients for the temperature interval from 10 to 2000 K are calculated from the experimental data. The absolute cross section for NH4+ agrees well with earlier work and is about a factor of 2 larger than the cross section for ND4+. The dissociative recombination of NH4+ is dominated by the product channels NH3+H (0.85+/-0.04) and NH2+2H (0.13+/-0.01), while the DR of ND4+ mainly results in ND3+D (0.94+/-0.03). Ab initio direct dynamics simulations, based on the assumption that the dissociation dynamics is governed by the neutral ground-state potential energy surface, suggest that the primary product formed in the DR process is NH3+H. The ejection of the H atom is direct and leaves the NH3 molecule highly vibrationally excited. A fraction of the excited ammonia molecules may subsequently undergo secondary fragmentation forming NH2+H. It is concluded that the model results are consistent with gross features of the experimental results, including the sensitivity of the branching ratio for the three-body channel NH2+2H to isotopic exchange.

Ice-catalyzed ionization of hydrochloric acid.

Ionization of hydrochloric acid (HCl) on stratospheric ice particles is believed to be a key step in the depletion of stratospheric ozone. Ab initio calculations based on a model HCl-water cluster show that HCl ionization on ice surfaces is a barrierless process. Since this mechanism is rapid and produces chloride anions that are exposed to ambient stratospheric chlorine reservoir molecules, it is likely to be important for stratospheric chemistry. It complements a previously suggested mechanism where HCl forms part of the ice lattice before ionizing. The mechanism proposed here is also consistent with experimentally observed ionization of HCl on ice at low temperatures and under vacuum, where the HCl is not expected to be encapsulated in the ice lattice.