Theoretical determination of power law coefficients based on aerosol number concentrations

Abstract

One of the most important parameters indicating the state of aerosol presence in the atmosphere is their size distribution. It can be used several distribution functions for characterising aerosol size distribution, depending on their size range. Also there are available many instruments that make measurements of aerosol number concentrations, like multi-channel aerosol/particle counters or aerosol spectrometers. In this study, the author have set the focus on a method to determine coefficients of power law distribution, based only on the measurement results taken by these aerosol/particle counters. The determination of these coefficients is based only on the measurement results taken by the aerosol/particle counters. Measurement instruments give aerosol concentrations in different measuring channels, and then using this algorithm it can be possible to estimate Junge coefficients, and so on to determine the size distribution of aerosol particles. This method facilitates the process for determination of aerosol size distribution, because it does not require several parameters as in other methods, however, this determination can be realised knowing only aerosol number concentrations in several bins of the measurement instrument. The accuracy of this method depends on the size of the channels of the measurement instrument. In short, the larger is the number of channels that have one measurement instrument, the more accurate can be the application of above mentioned method.