Evaluation of Elemental and Black Carbon Measurements from the GAViM and IMPROVE Networks

Abstract

The GAViM program provides fine particulate and visibility data for several remote locations in Canada. Two long-term intercomparison studies between the GAViM and a major U.S. aerosol monitoring network, IMPROVE, were used to evaluate the uncertainty in the analytical data produced by proton induced x-ray emission (PIXE), proton elastic scattering analysis (PESA), and gravimetric analysis. GAViM and IMPROVE agreed well for elements from Fe to Zn where PIXE is the most sensitive; the relative difference between the 2 networks for Fe and Zn was <2%. Some lighter elements, e.g., sodium or sulphur, revealed a difference of 10-20%. Furthermore, an empiric conversion scheme for the GAViM absorption data produced by the laser integrated plate method (LIPM) was derived from the comparison to the IMPROVE thermal/optical reflectance (TOR) data. This conversion depends on the aerosol composition and is therefore site specific. It allows estimation of the elemental carbon concentrations from the historic raw light absorption values obtained by LIPM. If the mass attenuation coefficient of the fine aerosol collected at the 2 remote GAViM sites is assumed to be equal to 10 m 2 /g, then the results imply that the light absorption coefficient measured by LIPM is generally higher than the true value by up to a factor of 1.3 or 1.8, respectively. In both cases, LIPM overestimated the black carbon content, mostly for the lightly loaded samples.