Artificial primary marine aerosol production: a laboratory study with varying water temperature, salinity and succinic acid concentration

Abstract

Abstract. Primary marine aerosols are an important component of the climate system, especially in the remote marine environment. With diminishing sea-ice cover, better understanding of the role of sea spray aerosol on climate in the polar regions is required. As for Arctic Ocean water, laboratory experiments with NaCl water confirm that a few degrees change in the water temperature (Tw) gives a large change in the number of primary particles. Smaller particles with a dry diameter between 0.01 μm and 0.25 μm dominate the aerosol number density, but their relative dominance decreases with increasing water temperature from 0 °C where they represent 85–90% of the total aerosol number to 60–70% of the total aerosol number at 10 °C water temperature. This effect is most likely related to a change in physical properties and not to modification of sea water chemistry. A change of salinity between 15 g kg−1 and 35 g kg−1 showed no influence on the relative shape of a particle number size distribution, nor did a change in water temperature between 0 °C and 16 °C. An experiment where succinic acid was added to a NaCl water solution showed, that the number concentration of particles with Dp < 0.312 μm decreased by 43% when the succinic acid concentration in NaCl water at Tw = 0 °C was increased from 0 μmol l−1 to 2446 μmol l−1. Different organic constituents and perhaps inorganic substances resulted in a particle number shift towards larger particle sizes, when comparing a size distribution resulting from pure NaCl water to size distributions resulting from Arctic Ocean water and resulting from NaCl water with a succinic acid concentration of 2446 μmol l−1.