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. 2026 Jan 27;60(3):2490-2502.
doi: 10.1021/acs.est.5c07574. Epub 2026 Jan 5.

Quality over Quantity: Organic Compounds Altering the Antarctic Sea Spray Aerosol Concentrations

Manuel Dall'osto  1 , Matteo Rinaldi  2 , Marta Estrada  1 , Maria Dolors Vaqué Vidal  1 , Elisa Berdalet  1 , Ana Sotomayor  1 , Miguel Cabrera-Brufau  1 , Sebastian Zeppenfeld  3 , David C S Beddows  4 , Roy M Harrison  4 , Manuela Van Pinxteren  3 , Hartmut Herrmann  3 , Stefano Decesari  2 , Marco Paglione  2
Affiliations

Quality over Quantity: Organic Compounds Altering the Antarctic Sea Spray Aerosol Concentrations

Manuel Dall'osto et al. Environ Sci Technol. .

Abstract

The Antarctic coastal zones are among the most biologically productive areas on Earth. The effect of marine microbiota on the emissions of sea spray particles, a critical factor for global climate and clouds, remains an open and actively researched question. Here, by means of in situ ship-borne bubble-bursting SSA production experiments at multiple locations around the Antarctic Peninsula, we show a 2-fold variability in the 10-500 nm size-resolved SSA number concentrations. We observed that the organic chemical composition of seawater (SW) and surface microlayers (SML) clearly impacts SSA number concentrations. SW and SML samples with saccharides, proteins, and N-osmolytes were less efficient at emitting SSA compared with waters rich in biotic material originating from lipids, such as fatty acids and polyols. We found that the dissolved organic carbon (DOC) fraction containing lipid degradation products and polyols indicates higher SSA production. Our results indicate that low concentration organic components, rather than the most abundant classes of biomolecules, influence the ability to be aerosolized, with strong chemical selectivity affecting SSA production.

Keywords: Antarctic aerosol; marine atmospheric biogeochemistry; primary aerosol; sea spray.

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Figures

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1
Aerosol size-resolved particle number (a) and volume (b) concentrations for the nine bubble-bursting SSA production experiments as L-AP and H-AP (low and high SSA production).
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PCA scores plots for NMR spectra analysis of PC1, PC2, PC3 and PC4 as (a) PC1 vs PC2, (b) PC1 vs PC3, (c) PC2 vs PC3, and (d) PC3 vs PC4. Please note: Solid dots markers SW (Sea Water), empty dots markers SML (Surface Micro Layer), and square markers SSA (Sea Spray Aerosols). Dark orange markers are the L-AP group (N = 5), Blue markers are the H-AP group (N = 4), and the black markers are additional points where the complete sets of measurements are missing (either SW, SML, or SSA samples missing, see Tables S1 and S2).
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(Bottom panel) averages for dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and particulate organic carbon (POC); polysaccharidic transparent exopolymer particles (TEP) and proteinaceous Coomassie stainable particles (CSP), and (middle panel) PMF factor contributions for Sea Water (SW) and Surface Microlayer (SML) samples for the H-AP (N = 4), L-AP (N = 4) and All (N = 21) POC groups, and (top panel) PMF factor contributions for the H-AP (N = 4), L-AP (N = 3), and all (N = 8) bubble aerosol PM1 groups.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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