Estimating the influence of transport on aerosol size distributions during new particle formation events

Abstract

Abstract. New particle formation (NPF) and subsequent particle growth occur frequently in various atmospheric environments. Significant influence of transport on aerosol size distributions is commonly observed, especially for non-regional NPF events. With certain assumptions and approximations, a population balance method is proposed to examine the influence of transport on the temporal evolution of aerosol size distributions during NPF events. The method is derived from the aerosol general dynamic equation in the continuous form. Meteorological information (e.g., wind speed, wind direction, and water vapor mixing ratio) was used to complement the analysis. The NPF events observed in Southeast Tibet, Fukue Island, and urban Beijing were analyzed using the proposed method. Significant contribution of transport to the observed aerosol size distributions is found during the NPF events in both Southeast Tibet and Fukue Island. The changes in the contribution of transport have a good correlation with the changes in wind speed and direction. This correlation indicates that local mountain and valley breezes govern the observed new particles at the Southeast Tibet site. Most NPF events observed at Fukue Island are closely related to the long-range transport of aerosols and gaseous precursors due to the movement of air masses. Regional NPF events are typically observed in urban Beijing and the contribution of transport to the observed aerosol size distributions is negligible when compared to other processes such as condensational growth and coagulation scavenging. In a relatively clean atmospheric environment, the proposed method can be used to characterize the contribution of transport to particles in the size range from ∼10 to ∼50 nm. During intense NPF events in a relatively polluted atmospheric environment, however, the estimated contribution of transport is sensitive to the uncertainties in condensational growth and coagulation scavenging due to the dominance of their corresponding terms in the population balance equation.