학술논문

Highly Hygroscopic Aerosols Facilitate Summer and Early-Autumn Cloud Formation at Extremely Low Concentrations Over the Central Arctic Ocean
Document Type
Source
Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres. 129(2)
Subject
Arctic aerosols
aerosol-cloud interactions
fog
cloud condensation nuclei
Groundbased counterflow virtual impactor
aerosol hygroscopicity
Language
English
ISSN
2169-897X
2169-8996
Abstract
Arctic clouds are sensitive to atmospheric particles since these are sometimes in such low concentrations that clouds cannot always form under supersaturated water vapor conditions. This is especially true in the late summer, when aerosol concentrations are generally very low in the high Arctic. The environment changes rapidly around freeze-up as the open waters close and snow starts accumulating on ice. We investigated droplet formation during eight significant fog events in the central Arctic Ocean, north of 80 degrees, from August 12 to 19 September 2018 during the Arctic Ocean 2018 expedition onboard the icebreaker Oden. Calculated hygroscopicity parameters (kappa) for the entire study were very high (up to kappa = 0.85 +/- 0.13), notably after freeze-up, suggesting that atmospheric particles were very cloud condensation nuclei (CCN)-active. At least one of the events showed that surface clouds were able to form and persist for at least a couple hours at aerosol concentrations less than 10 cm-3, which was previously suggested to be the minimum for cloud formation. Among these events that were considered limited in CCN, effective radii were generally larger than in the high CCN cases. In some of the fog events, droplet residuals particles did not reactivate under supersaturations up to 0.95%, suggesting either in-droplet reactions decreased hygroscopicity, or an ambient supersaturation above 1%. These results provide insight into droplet formation during the clean late-summer and fall of the high Arctic with limited influence from continental sources. The Arctic atmosphere can be very clean in the summer, to the point that clouds cannot form because there are insufficient particles present for the water vapor to condense upon. This has important implications for the radiation budget, which is highly dependent on clouds. As part of the Arctic Ocean 2018 expedition in the central Arctic Ocean near the North Pole, we investigated the ability of particles to turn into droplets throughout the whole cruise (August 12 to 19 September 2018), and during eight significant fog events. Overall, we found that after the sea ice started to freeze, the particles were more capable of turning into cloud droplets. During one fog event, we observed fog droplets forming when the particle concentrations were lower than the limit that past studies had suggested that fog/cloud could be sustained. During several fog events, the dried fog droplets did not always re-form droplets when exposed to cloud-like conditions, which suggests that the original droplets must have formed under extreme conditions. Our results show that in the summer/fall in the high Arctic, liquid droplets sometimes form under unusual circumstances that are likely not always considered in models. Aerosol hygroscopicity was greater after surface water freeze-up than beforeHygroscopicity of Aitken mode particles was generally greater than accumulation mode particlesCloud droplet effective radii during aerosol-limited periods were larger generally than periods with higher aerosol concentrations