Long-range transport of anthropogenic air pollutants into the marine air: insight into fine particle transport and chloride depletion on sea salts

Liang Xu,Daizhou Zhang,Xiaohong Yao,Huiwang Gao,Jian Zhang,Qi Yuan,Lei Liu,Yuanyuan Wang,Weijun Li,Xiaohuan Liu,Yinxiao Zhang,Lei Bi

doi:10.5194/acp-21-17715-2021

Abstract

Abstract. Long-range transport of anthropogenic air pollutants from East Asia can affect the downwind marine air quality during spring and winter. Long-range transport of continental air pollutants and their interaction with sea salt aerosol (SSA) significantly modify the radiative forcing of marine aerosols and influence ocean biogeochemical cycling. Previous studies poorly characterize variations of aerosol particles along with air mass transport from the continental edge to the remote ocean. Here, the research ship R/V Dongfanghong 2 traveled from the eastern China seas (ECS) to the northwestern Pacific Ocean (NWPO) to understand what and how air pollutants were transported from the highly polluted continental air to clean marine air in spring. A transmission electron microscope (TEM) was used to find the long-range transported anthropogenic particles and the possible Cl-depletion phenomenon of SSA in marine air. Anthropogenic aerosols (e.g., sulfur (S)-rich, S-soot, S-metal/fly ash, organic matter (OM)-S, and OM coating particles) were identified and dramatically declined from 87 % to 8 % by number from the ECS to remote NWPO. For the SSA aging, 87 % of SSA particles in the ECS were identified as fully aged, while the proportion of fully aged SSA particles in the NWPO decreased to 29 %. Our results highlight that anthropogenic acidic gases in the troposphere (e.g., SO2, NOx, and volatile organic compounds) could be transported to remote marine air and exert a significant impact on aging of SSA particles in the NWPO. The study shows that anthropogenic particles and gases from East Asia significantly perturb different aerosol chemistry from coastal to remote marine air. More attention should be given to the modification of SSA particles in remote marine areas due to the influence of anthropogenic gaseous pollutants.

Highlights

Marine aerosols play an important role in the global aerosol emission budget and greatly impact the Earth’s radiative forcing and biogeochemical cycling (O’Dowd Colin and de Leeuw, 2007)
The POM particles are directly emitted from the combustion of fossil fuel and biomass, and SOM particles are formed from volatile organic compounds (VOCs) or the oxidized POM in the atmosphere (Li et al, 2016a; Wang et al, 2021)
Individual aerosol particles were collected from 17 March to 22 April 2014 onboard the R/V Dongfanghong 2 from the eastern China seas (ECS) to the northwestern Pacific Ocean (NWPO)

Summary

Introduction

Marine aerosols play an important role in the global aerosol emission budget and greatly impact the Earth’s radiative forcing and biogeochemical cycling (O’Dowd Colin and de Leeuw, 2007). Sea salt aerosol (SSA) is one crucial component of marine aerosols, especially in the remote marine atmosphere (Lewis and Schwartz, 2004). The SSA aging processes can transform fresh SSA into partially aged SSA and into fully aged SSA that mainly contain NaNO3, Na2SO4, and organic sodium salts (Chi et al, 2015; Laskin et al, 2012). These products from the chemical aging processes modify hygroscopic prop-

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion