Advances in Light-Absorbing Carbonaceous Aerosols Research

A special issue of Atmosphere (ISSN 2073-4433). This special issue belongs to the section "Aerosols".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 April 2022) | Viewed by 5266

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi’an 710061, China
Interests: light-absorbing carbonaceous aerosols; black carbon; brown carbon; aerosol optical properties; light absorption; mixing state; source apportionment; radiative effect

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Guest Editor
School of Social and Environmental Development, National Institute of Development Administration (NIDA), Bangkok 10240, Thailand
Interests: POPs; source apportionment; OC/EC; long-range atmospheric transport; atmospheric chemistry
Key Laboratory of Middle Atmosphere and Global Environment Observation (LAGEO), Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China
Interests: aerosol optical properties; aerosol physicochemical properties; aerosol hygroscopicity; aerosol–cloud–radiation interaction
School of Environmental and Municipal Engineering, Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology, Xi'an 710055, China
Interests: heavy metal; light-absorbing carbonaceous particles; health risks; toxics source apportionment; atmospheric pollution
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Light-absorbing carbonaceous aerosols (black carbon and brown carbon) are the key particulate absorbing material in the atmosphere and the most important radiative forcing factors to the Earth climate. Although light-absorbing carbonaceous aerosols only account for a small fraction of atmospheric aerosols, they could lead to important effects on the global climate due to their special physicochemical features and synchronized effects with other components. Thus, light-absorbing carbonaceous aerosols are one of the frontal research fields in current aerosol studies. Although the influences of light-absorbing carbonaceous aerosols on climate and environmental quality are gradually becoming better known by the public, the extent and pathway of the influence are still a controversial topic. The bottleneck is determining the uncertainty associated with diverse emission sources and the aging processes temporally and spatially (including horizontally and vertically).

Thus, this Special Issue focuses on the physicochemical properties (including chemical composition, size distribution, mixing state, and optical properties), vertical distribution, and source apportionment of light-absorbing carbonaceous aerosols. In addition, the novel methods and techniques on the measurements of the physicochemical properties or the remote sensing of light-absorbing carbonaceous aerosols as well as their impacts on climate are also welcome.

Dr. Qiyuan Wang
Dr. Siwatt Pongpiachan
Dr. Yunfei Wu
Dr. Qian Zhang
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • light-absorbing carbonaceous aerosols
  • black carbon
  • brown carbon
  • OC/EC
  • optical properties
  • source apportionment
  • vertical distribution
  • remote sensing
  • aerosol–cloud–radiation interaction
  • radiative effect

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

20 pages, 2350 KiB  
Article
An Application of Artificial Neural Network to Evaluate the Influence of Weather Conditions on the Variation of PM2.5-Bound Carbonaceous Compositions and Water-Soluble Ionic Species
by Siwatt Pongpiachan, Qiyuan Wang, Ronbanchob Apiratikul, Danai Tipmanee, Yu Li, Li Xing, Guohui Li, Yongming Han, Junji Cao, Ronald C. Macatangay, Saran Poshyachinda, Aekkapol Aekakkararungroj and Muhammad Zaffar Hashmi
Atmosphere 2022, 13(7), 1042; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos13071042 - 30 Jun 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2205
Abstract
Previous studies have determined biomass burning as a major source of air pollutants in the ambient air in Thailand. To analyse the impacts of meteorological parameters on the variation of carbonaceous aerosols and water-soluble ionic species (WSIS), numerous statistical models, including a source [...] Read more.
Previous studies have determined biomass burning as a major source of air pollutants in the ambient air in Thailand. To analyse the impacts of meteorological parameters on the variation of carbonaceous aerosols and water-soluble ionic species (WSIS), numerous statistical models, including a source apportionment analysis with the assistance of principal component analysis (PCA), hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), and artificial neural networks (ANNs), were employed in this study. A total of 191 sets of PM2.5 samples were collected from the three monitoring stations in Chiang-Mai, Bangkok, and Phuket from July 2020 to June 2021. Hotspot numbers and other meteorological parameters were obtained using NOAA-20 weather satellites coupled with the Global Land Data Assimilation System. Although PCA revealed that crop residue burning and wildfires are the two main sources of PM2.5, ANNs highlighted the importance of wet deposition as the main depletion mechanism of particulate WSIS and carbonaceous aerosols. Additionally, Mg2+ and Ca2+ were deeply connected with albedo, plausibly owing to their strong hygroscopicity as the CCNs responsible for cloud formation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Light-Absorbing Carbonaceous Aerosols Research)
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12 pages, 1701 KiB  
Article
Characteristics of Fine Particulate Matter (PM2.5)-Bound n-Alkanes and Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) in a Hong Kong Suburban Area
by Yuan Gao, Zhenhao Ling, Zhuozhi Zhang and Shuncheng Lee
Atmosphere 2022, 13(6), 980; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos13060980 - 17 Jun 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2311
Abstract
PM2.5 samples were collected at Tung Chung (TC), Hong Kong, during four nonconsecutive months in 2011/2012 to determine the concentrations, seasonal variations, and potential sources of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and n-alkanes (n-C15-n-C35). Samples [...] Read more.
PM2.5 samples were collected at Tung Chung (TC), Hong Kong, during four nonconsecutive months in 2011/2012 to determine the concentrations, seasonal variations, and potential sources of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and n-alkanes (n-C15-n-C35). Samples were analyzed using the thermal desorption gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (TD-GC/MS) method. The concentrations of particulate PAHs ranged from 1.26–13.93 ng/m3 with a mean value of 2.57 ng/m3, dominated by 4-ring species. Phenanthrene (Phe) and fluoranthene (Flu) were the two most abundant species, accounting for 13% and 18%, respectively. The dominant sources of PAHs were coal and biomass burning. The inhalation cancer risk value in our study exceeded 1 × 10−6 but was below 1 × 10−4, implying that the inhalation cancer risk of PAHs at the TC site is acceptable. The average concertation of n-alkanes was 103.21 ng/m3 (ranging from 38.58 to 191.44 ng/m3), and C25 was the most abundant species. Both PAHs and n-alkanes showed higher concentrations in autumn and winter whilst these values were lowest in summer. The carbon preference index (CPI) and percent contribution of wax n-alkanes showed that biogenic sources were the major sources. The annual average contributions of higher plant wax to n-alkanes at TC were over 40%. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Light-Absorbing Carbonaceous Aerosols Research)
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