Publication Date:
2012-09-01
Description:
The fine particles serving as cloud condensation nuclei in pristine Amazonian rainforest air consist mostly of secondary organic aerosol. Their origin is enigmatic, however, because new particle formation in the atmosphere is not observed. Here, we show that the growth of organic aerosol particles can be initiated by potassium-salt-rich particles emitted by biota in the rainforest. These particles act as seeds for the condensation of low- or semi-volatile organic compounds from the atmospheric gas phase or multiphase oxidation of isoprene and terpenes. Our findings suggest that the primary emission of biogenic salt particles directly influences the number concentration of cloud condensation nuclei and affects the microphysics of cloud formation and precipitation over the rainforest.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Pohlker, Christopher -- Wiedemann, Kenia T -- Sinha, Barbel -- Shiraiwa, Manabu -- Gunthe, Sachin S -- Smith, Mackenzie -- Su, Hang -- Artaxo, Paulo -- Chen, Qi -- Cheng, Yafang -- Elbert, Wolfgang -- Gilles, Mary K -- Kilcoyne, Arthur L D -- Moffet, Ryan C -- Weigand, Markus -- Martin, Scot T -- Poschl, Ulrich -- Andreae, Meinrat O -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2012 Aug 31;337(6098):1075-8. doi: 10.1126/science.1223264.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Biogeochemistry Department, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz 55020, Germany. c.pohlker@mpic.de〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22936773" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Atmosphere/*chemistry
;
Particle Size
;
Particulate Matter/*chemistry
;
Potassium/*chemistry
;
Rain/*chemistry
;
Salts/chemistry
;
South America
;
Trees/*chemistry
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
