Abstract
Abstract. A growing number of studies are using specific primary sugar species, such as sugar alcohols or primary saccharides, as marker compounds to characterize and apportion primary biogenic organic aerosols (PBOAs) in the atmosphere. To better understand their annual cycles, as well as their spatiotemporal abundance in terms of concentrations and sources, we conducted a large study focusing on three major atmospheric primary sugar compounds (i.e., arabitol, mannitol, and glucose) measured in various environmental conditions for about 5300 filter samples collected at 28 sites in France. Our results show significant atmospheric concentrations of polyols (defined here as the sum of arabitol and mannitol) and glucose at each sampling location, highlighting their ubiquity. Results also confirm that polyols and glucose are mainly associated with the coarse rather than the fine aerosol mode. At nearly all sites, atmospheric concentrations of polyols and glucose display a well-marked seasonal pattern, with maximum concentrations from late spring to early autumn, followed by an abrupt decrease in late autumn, and a minimum concentration during wintertime. Such seasonal patterns support biogenic emissions associated with higher biological metabolic activities (sporulation, growth, etc.) during warmer periods. Results from a previous comprehensive study using positive matrix factorization (PMF) based on an extended aerosol chemical composition dataset of up to 130 species for 16 of the same sample series have also been used in the present work. The polyols-to-PMPBOA ratio is 0.024±0.010 on average for all sites, with no clear distinction between traffic, urban, or rural typology. Overall, even if the exact origin of the PBOA source is still under investigation, it appears to be an important source of particulate matter (PM), especially during summertime. Results also show that PBOAs are significant sources of total organic matter (OM) in PM10 (13±4 % on a yearly average, and up to 40 % in some environments in summer) at most of the investigated sites. The mean PBOA chemical profile is clearly dominated by contribution from OM (78±9 % of the mass of the PBOA PMF on average), and only a minor contribution from the dust class (3±4 %), suggesting that ambient polyols are most likely associated with biological particle emissions (e.g., active spore discharge) rather than soil dust resuspension.
Highlights
Airborne particles are of major concern due to their multiple effects on climate and adverse human health impacts (Boucher et al, 2013; Cho et al, 2005; Ntziachristos et al, 2007)
Co-located and simultaneous PM10 and PM2.5 samplings were conducted at OPEANDRA and Revin, allowing us to investigate the distribution of primary sugar compounds between the fine and the coarse aerosol size fractions at these two sites
3.2 Relationships between selected primary sugar compounds relatively abundant in samples from these two sites (20.1 ± 16.2 ng m−3), accounting for 14 % of SC mass, but in general its concentration is frequently below the limit of quantification for samples from other sites in France
Summary
Airborne particles (or particulate matter, PM) are of major concern due to their multiple effects on climate and adverse human health impacts (Boucher et al, 2013; Cho et al, 2005; Ntziachristos et al, 2007). A maximum of only 20 % of particulate OM mass can generally be speciated and quantified (Alfarra et al, 2007; Fortenberry et al, 2018; Liang et al, 2017; Nozière et al, 2015) This detailed composition of OM and its spatial and seasonal distribution can give important insights into the adverse effects of PM. The majority of air pollution studies have focused on organic atmospheric particles associated with anthropogenic and secondary sources, whereas a significant fraction of OM can be associated with primary emissions from biogenic sources (Bauer et al, 2008a; Jaenicke, 2005; Liang et al, 2016). The characterization of primary OM biogenic sources at the molecular level is still limited (Fuzzi et al, 2006; Liang et al, 2017; Zhu et al, 2015), and should be further investigated for a better understanding of aerosol sources and formation processes
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