Hygroscopic properties of aerosol particles over the central Arctic Ocean during summer

Abstract

The hygroscopic properties of submicrometer aerosol particles in the Arctic summer marine boundary layer (MBL) were observed on board the icebreaker Oden during the Arctic Ocean Expedition 1996 (AOE‐96). The measurements were performed between July 15 and August 25 1996 and covered the region between longitudes 16°‐147°E and latitudes 70°‐87.5°N, mostly over melting pack ice. The hygroscopic tandem differential mobility analyzer (H‐TDMA) was used to determine the hygroscopic diameter growth of aerosol particles at four dry diameters (15, 35, 50, and 165 nm) and three relative humidities (50%, 70%, and 90% RH). The hygroscopic behavior of the aerosol particles over the pack ice showed large temporal variations, in contrast to previous observations in marine boundary layers over warmer oceans. These variations were mostly due to the high degree of vertical atmospheric stratification often observed over the pack ice. However, when comparing the average diameter growth factors of the more hygroscopic particle group, representing an aged aerosol with growth factors between 1.4–1.9 at 90% RH and present in 81–86% of all cases, the agreement between the measurements over the Arctic and the warmer oceans was very good and depended on the average wind speed. The average diameter growth factors of the more hygroscopic particles as a function of relative humidity were modeled empirically by power law expressions. The concentration of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) estimated from aerosol number size distribution and hygroscopic growth data correlated well with direct measurements but overpredicted the CCN concentrations by about 30%. In 43 cases when the sampled air mass had undergone processing in Arctic Ocean MBL clouds, the minimum CCN diameter was estimated to be 76±15 nm, corresponding to effective water vapor supersaturations of 0.28±0.08%.