Abstract
Carbon‐containing aerosol particles collected in the Arctic and southeastern Pacific marine boundary layers show distinct chemical signatures of proteins, calcareous phytoplankton, and two types of polysaccharides in Near‐Edge Absorption X‐ray Fine Structure (NEXAFS) spectromicroscopy. Arctic samples contained mostly supermicron sea salt cuboids with a polysaccharide‐like organic coating. Southeastern Pacific samples contained both continental and marine aerosol types; of the 28 analyzed marine particles, 19 were characterized by sharp alkane and inorganic carbonate peaks in NEXAFS spectra and are identified as fragments of calcareous phytoplankton. Submicron spherical particles with spectral similarities to carbohydrate‐like marine sediments were also observed in Pacific samples. In both regions, supermicron amide and alkane‐containing particles resembling marine proteinaceous material were observed. These four chemical types provide a framework that incorporates several independent reports of previous marine aerosol observations, showing the diversity of the composition and morphology of ocean‐derived primary particles.
Highlights
The transfer of organic components from the ocean surface to marine aerosol through bubble bursting was shown over 40 years ago [1,2,3]
Nonmarine particle types include soil dust, combustion, and secondary particles. These particle types have been observed in previous measurements in urban locations (e.g., Mexico City) and areas affected by urban outflow [32]
Soil dust particles are characterized by carbonate, potassium, and carboxylic acid-containing organic components (Type “f ” in [32]) and are attributed to air masses passing near Santiago and other urban areas along the arid Chilean coast before reaching the ship [15]
Summary
The transfer of organic components from the ocean surface to marine aerosol through bubble bursting was shown over 40 years ago [1,2,3]. Decreases projected for Arctic sea ice extent in response to climate warming may contribute an additional 40–200 ng m−3 of aerosol organic carbon (OC) by 2100 from a combination of increased surface ocean productivity and increased spatial extent of wave action [11]. This change in OC is significant considering that background concentrations of less than 1 μg m−3 are common in the remote MBL [8, 10, 12,13,14,15]
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