Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2014 Oct 16:4:6634.
doi: 10.1038/srep06634.

Polluted dust promotes new particle formation and growth

Wei Nie  1 , Aijun Ding  2 , Tao Wang  3 , Veli-Matti Kerminen  4 , Christian George  5 , Likun Xue  6 , Wenxing Wang  7 , Qingzhu Zhang  7 , Tuukka Petäjä  4 , Ximeng Qi  2 , Xiaomei Gao  7 , Xinfeng Wang  7 , Xiuqun Yang  2 , Congbin Fu  2 , Markku Kulmala  4
Affiliations

Polluted dust promotes new particle formation and growth

Wei Nie et al. Sci Rep. .

Erratum in

Abstract

Understanding new particle formation and their subsequent growth in the troposphere has a critical impact on our ability to predict atmospheric composition and global climate change. High pre-existing particle loadings have been thought to suppress the formation of new atmospheric aerosol particles due to high condensation and coagulation sinks. Here, based on field measurements at a mountain site in South China, we report, for the first time, in situ observational evidence on new particle formation and growth in remote ambient atmosphere during heavy dust episodes mixed with anthropogenic pollution. Both the formation and growth rates of particles in the diameter range 15-50 nm were enhanced during the dust episodes, indicating the influence of photo-induced, dust surface-mediated reactions and resulting condensable vapor production. This study provides unique in situ observations of heterogeneous photochemical processes inducing new particle formation and growth in the real atmosphere, and suggests an unexpected impact of mineral dust on climate and atmospheric chemistry.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Temporal variations of aerosol related parameters during 20 April to 9 May, 2009.
(A) Time series of PM10, PM2.5, calcium in PM2.5, and (B) particle number size distribution at Mt. Heng during April–May 2009.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Analysis of relationship between different proxies.
(A) Scatter plot of hourly averaged UV × SO2 versus condensation sink at noontime (12:00–14:59 LT), (B) Temporal variations of the ratios of daily noontime (12:00–14:59 LT) averaged ozone to condensation sink during March–May 2009.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Map shows eroded area, emission rates and transport pathways for the dust cases.
(A) Area of eroded in Asia, (B) Emission rate of SO2, (C) Emission rate of monoterperene from biogenic emission in April, and (D) 100 m footprint retroplume calculated by 7-day backward Lagrangian dispersion simulation for 20–22 April and 25–26 April, 2009. The maps were drawn by the software of Igor Pro, http://www.wavemetrics.com/.
Figure 4
Figure 4. Schematic description of main stages of Asian dusts during the long range transport in the atmosphere and their main transport pathways.
Stage I-Mineral dusts are injected into the atmosphere in the remote area. Stage II - dust particles uptake anthropogenic reactive gases and form secondary coatings after them transported over area with high anthropogenic emissions. Heterogeneous photochemical processes should play a role in this stage, but easily be covered up by strong gas phase photochemistry. Stage III - aged dusts transport to remote Asia-Pacific region, where the plumes experience heterogeneous photochemical reactions favoring the new particle formation and growth. The map in the figure was drawn by Global Mapper.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. IPCC. Climate change 2013: the physical science basis. Contribution of working group I to the fifth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Stocker T. F., et al. (eds.). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New YorkNYUSA, (2013).
    1. Ramanathan V., Crutzen P. J., Kiehl J. T. & Rosenfeld D. Aerosols, climate, and the hydrological cycle. Science 294, 2119–2124 (2001). - PubMed
    1. Seinfeld J. H. & Pandis S. N. Atmospheric chemistry and physics: from air pollution to climate change. (John Wiley & Sons, 2006).
    1. Tegen I. & Schepanski K. The global distribution of mineral dust. IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science 7, Barcelona, Spain. Bristol, United Kingdom: IOP Publishing, 012001 (2009).
    1. Kulmala M. et al. On the formation, growth and composition of nucleation mode particles. Tellus B 53, 479–490 (2001).

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources