Regional effect on urban atmospheric nucleation

Salma, Imre and Németh, Zoltán and Kerminen, Veli-Matti and Aalto, Pasi and Nieminen, Tuomo and Weidinger, Tamás and Molnár, Ágnes and Imre, Kornélia (2016) Regional effect on urban atmospheric nucleation. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 16. pp. 8715-8728. ISSN 1680-7324

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Abstract

Secondary aerosol particle production via new particle formation (NPF) has been shown to be a major contributor to the global aerosol load. NPF has also been observed frequently in urban environments. Here, we investigate the effect of regional NPF on urban aerosol load under well-defined atmospheric conditions. The Carpathian Basin, the largest orogenic basin in Europe, represents an excellent opportunity for exploring these interactions. Based on longterm observations, we revealed that NPF seen in a central large city of the basin (Budapest) and its regional background occur in a consistent and spatially coherent way as a result of a joint atmospheric phenomenon taking place on large horizontal scales. We found that NPF events at the urban site are usually delayed by >1 h relative to the rural site or even inhibited above a critical condensational sink level. The urban processes require higher formation rates and growth rates to be realized, by mean factors of 2 and 1.6, respectively, than the regional events. Regional- and urban-type NPF events sometimes occur jointly with multiple onsets, while they often exhibit dynamic and timing properties which are different for these two event types.

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