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JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH,
VOL. 114,
D00F15,
21 PP., 2009
doi:10.1029/2008JD011699
Cloud condensation nuclei activity, closure, and droplet growth kinetics of Houston aerosol during the Gulf of Mexico Atmospheric Composition and Climate Study (GoMACCS)
School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Chemical Sciences Division, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Boulder, Colorado, USA
School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Department of Physics, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, Michigan, USA
Climate Observations, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA
Department of Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA
Department of Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA
Department of Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA
Department of Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA
Department of Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA
Department of Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA
Department of Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA
Chemical Sciences Division, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Boulder, Colorado, USA
Center for Inter-Disciplinary Remotely Piloted Aircraft Studies, Naval Postgraduate School, Marina, California, USA
In situ cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) measurements were obtained in the boundary layer over Houston, Texas, during the 2006 Gulf of Mexico Atmospheric Composition and Climate Study (GoMACCS) campaign onboard the CIRPAS Twin Otter. Polluted air masses in and out of cloudy regions were sampled for a total of 22 flights, with CCN measurements obtained for 17 of these flights. In this paper, we focus on CCN closure during two flights, within and downwind of the Houston regional plume and over the Houston Ship Channel. During both flights, air was sampled with particle concentrations exceeding 25,000 cm−3 and CCN concentrations exceeding 10,000 cm−3. CCN closure is evaluated by comparing measured concentrations with those predicted on the basis of measured aerosol size distributions and aerosol mass spectrometer particle composition. Different assumptions concerning the internally mixed chemical composition result in average CCN overprediction ranging from 3% to 36% (based on a linear fit). It is hypothesized that the externally mixed fraction of the aerosol contributes much of the CCN closure scatter, while the internally mixed fraction largely controls the overprediction bias. On the basis of the droplet sizes of activated CCN, organics do not seem to impact, on average, the CCN activation kinetics.
Received 31 December 2008; accepted 13 May 2009; published 30 July 2009.
Citation: (2009), Cloud condensation nuclei activity, closure, and droplet growth kinetics of Houston aerosol during the Gulf of Mexico Atmospheric Composition and Climate Study (GoMACCS), J. Geophys. Res., 114, D00F15, doi:10.1029/2008JD011699, [printed 115(D7), 2010].
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