Observations of submicron salt particles at Cape Grim during ACE-1

摘要

The chemical composition of individual aerosol particles was measured at Cape Grim, Tasmania, a remote marine site. These measurements were made during the first Aerosol Characterization Experiment (ACE-1). Measurements of aerosol composition were made in situ with a laser ionization mass spectrometer. Comparative data is also available during the same experiment from scanning and transmission electron microscopy and bulk analyses. All of these techniques show that the preponderance of accumulation mode aerosol particles contained sea salt. Many models of the marine environment, on the other hand, have assumed that the accumulation mode particls in the marine boundary layer (MBL) are primarily sulfate. Calculations of light scattering show that aerosol radiative properties were dominated by sea salt at this remote, windy location.